Coincidence? Guantanamo term ends as Bush's does
Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:15am EDT

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - It was no coincidence
the U.S. military jurors at Guantanamo timed the prison sentence they
gave Osama bin Laden's driver to end just before President George W.
Bush's term does, legal analysts say.

The timing seems intended to give the next U.S. president who takes
office on January 20 a chance to override the Bush administration's
announcement that it will continue to hold convicted Yemeni captive
Salim Hamdan as an "enemy combatant" in the war against terrorism after
he finishes his sentence.

"My inference is that they concluded that this administration would not
release Hamdan at the end of his sentence, but the next one might," said
David Glazier, a national security expert who teaches at Loyola Law School.

"I think Hamdan's continued detention past the end of his sentence,
although justifiable under the law of war, would be a political train
wreck, and I think the panel made an effort to protect the U.S. from
further international criticism."

Both major U.S. presidential candidates have said they would close the
detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The six-member jury of military officers convicted Hamdan on Wednesday
of providing material support for terrorism by driving and guarding bin
Laden in Afghanistan.

They rejected charges that he was part of a broad al Qaeda conspiracy to
murder American civilians, one of the "worst of the worst."

The verdict in the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War Two
endorsed military defense lawyers' position that Hamdan was a bit player
who made the terrible decision to keep working for bin Laden because he
needed the $200 monthly salary to support his family.

MILITARY PUSHING BACK

When jurors began deliberating his sentence, the only question they
asked the judge was how much credit Hamdan would get for the time he has
been held at Guantanamo. The judge said he would get a little over 61
months' credit, and the jurors sentenced Hamdan to a 66-month term that
runs out at the end of December.

The jurors did not publicly explain their reasons but given the nuance
of their verdict, it seems unlikely that timing was a coincidence.

"For seven years, uniformed military officers have pushed back against
the administration's most extreme and unlawful detention and
interrogation policies, only to be overruled by White House lawyers with
little respect for the Constitution or Geneva Conventions," said Ben
Wizner, a lawyer who monitored the trial for the American Civil
Liberties Union.

"We may never know what the commission members were thinking, but we saw
what they did: they ensured that Mr. Hamdan's fate will be determined by
a future administration with more respect for the rule of law."

Only one other prisoner has been convicted at Guantanamo, Australian
David Hicks. He avoided trial by pleading guilty to providing material
support for terrorism -- the same charge Hamdan was convicted of. Hicks
plea-bargained for a nine-month sentence and was allowed to leave
Guantanamo before it ended, finishing it out in Australia.

"Holding Hamdan past the end of his (term) is only going to further
inflame anti-American feelings in the Muslim world where the U.S. will
clearly be perceived as continuing to discriminate on the basis of
nationality or religion," said Glazier, a former U.S. Navy officer.

U.S. citizens are exempt from imprisonment and trial at Guantanamo. All
the captives from Western nations were released long ago except for
Canadian Omar Khadr, who faces trial in October on charges of killing a
U.S. soldier with a grenade.


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