Bin Laden 'Bodyguard' goes before Guantanamo tribunal
Osama bin Laden’s alleged bodyguard and chauffeur today becomes Guantanamo Bay’s first terror suspect brought before a US military commission that allows for secret evidence and no government appeals.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni, has said he earned a pittance for his family by driving al-Qaida’s leader before the September 11 attacks, but denies supporting terrorism.
“This process goes against everything that we fought for in the history of the United States,” said Lt Cmdr Charlie Swift, Hamdan’s lawyer who is likely to challenge the government’s classification of Hamdan as an enemy combatant.
Depending upon what Swift has up his sleeve or what surprises the prosecutors hold at the pre-trial hearing today, Hamdan could choose not to enter a plea and his lawyer could ask for more time to prepare. It is also possible Swift will question whether the five-member commission panel’s presiding officer, US Army Col Peter Brownback, has the capacity to judge the proceedings fairly.
The Pentagon, in a charge sheet, alleged Hamdan, also known as Saqr al Jaddawi, was a bodyguard and personal driver for bin Laden between February 1996 and November 24, 2001.
The Pentagon also said he transported weapons to al-Qaida operatives, trained at an al-Qaida camp and drove in convoys that carried bin Laden. It does not say he took part in any specific acts of violence or participated in the operational planning of any attacks.
With a primary-school education and few skills to interpret legal jargon, Hamdan does not understand why he is being charged as anything but a civilian, Swift says.
Yemeni security officials said Hamdan joined a Yemeni branch of the Egyptian militant group Islamic Jihad before al-Qaida was formed. A faction of Egyptian Islamic Jihad is allegedly led by bin Laden’s chief aide, Ayman al-Zawahri, and merged with organisations led by bin Laden and others to form al-Qaida in 1998.
Security officials said Hamdan was not a senior member of Islamic Jihad and he left Yemen for Afghanistan before the September 11 terror attacks.
Hamdan’s family in Yemen has refused to comment on the charges.
Representatives from London-based Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and the American Bar Association were offered seats as observers for the pre-trial hearings, but military officials have refused to let them tour the Cuban naval base prison.
The five groups said they would watch the hearings and try to keep a representative present for all of the commission proceedings.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was deciding whether to send an observer to the commission hearings, the first such proceedings since the Second World War.
The Geneva-based group has been the only independent organisation to have access to the 585 prisoners at the US base, accused of links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban or the al-Qaida terror network.
Human rights groups have criticised holding the men as enemy combatants, a classification giving them fewer legal protections than prisoners of war. They also have questioned whether the commissions ordered by US president George Bush will be fair.
Bush, as well as senior US officials, has repeatedly called the men “terrorists”.
Hamdan and three others appearing this week face life in prison, though some defendants could face the death penalty.
The two others charged with conspiracy and to go before the hearings this week are Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, 33, of Yemen, and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, born in 1960.
The fourth defendant is Australian David Hicks, 29, who faces the broadest set of charges – conspiracy to commit war crimes as well as aiding the enemy, and attempted murder for allegedly firing at US or coalition forces in Afghanistan before his capture.
It could be months before the actual commissions begin.
