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A military jury convicted Salim Hamdan on charges of providing material support to terrorism at his hearing at Guantanamo Bay. Hamdan was acquitted on additional charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to commit war crimes. The US military accused him of transporting missiles for al Qaeda and helping Bin Laden escape US authorities following the September 11 attacks by driving him around Afghanistan. Hamdan's defence team said he was merely a low-level Bin Laden employee. The Yemeni, who now faces a maximum life sentence, held his head in his hands and wept at the defence table. The White House welcomed...

Gitmo Tribunal Has Reached Verdict in Bin Laden-Driver Case

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A potential mistrial was avoided in the first Guantanamo trial on Tuesday when the U.S. military judge ruled it was too late to challenge his war crimes instructions to the jury deliberating the case of Osama bin Laden's driver. But the judge acknowledged he may have erred and prosecutors sought clarification on the law that they said could affect plans to try up to 80 more Guantanamo prisoners.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- The commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center said Saturday he has been researching new potential accommodations for Osama bin Laden's driver, who could be held here indefinitely regardless of the verdict at his war crimes trial. A jury of American military officers is expected to begin deliberations Monday in the case of Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who faces a maximum life sentence on charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism. Even if he is found innocent, he may not leave this U.S. Navy base. The military retains the right to hold those considered to...

Alleged 9/11 Architect (KSM) Says bin Laden's Driver Was 'Not a Soldier'

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden wanted to introduce himself to America with an ABC television interview months before al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, the interviewer testified on Tuesday. Former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout. It was a rare opportunity for an American journalist, and Miller detailed a movie-thriller route to get to bin Laden, complete with...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — In his seventh of month of U.S. captivity, Osama bin Laden's driver told a pair of FBI agents that it was America's fault that the al Qaida leader was alive. The message was, ''You had these opportunities, America. You didn't do anything,'' FBI agent George Crouch Jr. testified Friday at Salim Hamdan's war crimes trial. The United States could have killed bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, before he moved to Afghanistan in 1996, Hamdan told his interrogators. They could have killed him after al Qaida's 1998 twin bombings at the U.S. Embassy bombings in...

Some interesting testimony from an FBI interrogator in the trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, July 23 — Osama bin Laden’s driver witnessed the al-Qaeda leader being briefed on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and overheard him express satisfaction that the death toll had exceeded expectations, an FBI interrogator testified Wednesday. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, now held at the U.S. military prison here, had said under questioning six years ago that bin Laden was “happy about the results” of the terrorist strikes because he had expected “only” 1,000 to 1,500 people to...

Excerpt - GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, July 24 (Reuters) - A driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday. "Our policy at the time was not to read Miranda rights," FBI special agent Robert Fuller said in testimony at the U.S. military commission trial of Salim Hamdan on charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Fuller was referring to the Miranda v. Arizona U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966, which held that potential criminal suspects in custody...

Bin Laden happy with September 11 toll, war court told Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:58pm EDT By Jim Loney GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver overheard the al Qaeda leader saying he was happy about the death toll in the September 11 attacks and thought the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot down, according to one of the driver's interrogators. The evidence by Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, was meant to support the case by prosecutors at the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunal that the driver, Salim Hamdan, was close to...

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver knew the target of the fourth hijacked jetliner in the September 11 attacks, a prosecutor said on Tuesday in an attempt to draw a link between Salim Hamdan and the al Qaeda leadership in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

Some Evidence Excluded As War Trial Opens 'highly coercive' interrogations

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled to allow the first Guantanamo Bay war crimes trial to move forward, blocking an appeal by lawyers for Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Usama bin Laden.

A former drive of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has claimed that he was sexually humiliated and groped by a touchy-feely female interrogator at the Guantanamo Bay prison. According to the New York Post, a lawyer representing Salim Ahmed Hamdan, said the woman put her hand on his thigh and behaved in an "improper" way that made him uncomfortable as a Muslim. "She came very close with her whole body toward me," he testified through an interpreter. "I couldn't do anything." Hamdan, a 37-year-old Yemeni, became visibly disturbed when his lawyer asked him about the female interrogator. He refused...

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, July 15 --Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged al-Qaeda driver who faces an historic military trial next week, testified Tuesday that a female interrogator elicited information from him using sexually suggestive behavior that was offensive to him. Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, told a military court conducting a pretrial hearing that during questioning in 2002 a woman interrogator "came close to me, she came very close, with her whole body towards me. I couldn't do anything. I was afraid of the soldiers.'' "Did she touch your thigh?," asked Hamdan's lawyer, Charles Swift. "Yes...I said to...

In the aftermath of the bulldozer attack in downtown Jerusalem, Zuhier Hamdan, one of the mukhtars of the Jerusalem Arab village of Sur Bahir, home to the terrorist, was widely interviewed in the press. As reporters asked Hamdan for his reaction to the attack, I was reminded of the interview I conducted five years ago with the Israel-friendly village leader.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Osama bin Laden's former driver may not go on trial this summer at Guantanamo after all. The military lawyer for Salim Hamdan says the Supreme Court ruling on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners is likely to at least delay the Yemeni's war crimes trial. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer told The Associated Press he will file a motion to dismiss the war crimes charges against Hamdan based on the court's finding that Guantanamo prisoners have constitutional rights. The defense lawyer said Wednesday he will argue that Hamdan was denied his constitutional right to a speedy...

Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense. But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Hamdan, already the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, has essentially been driven insane by solitary confinement in a tiny cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks,...

US military kills al-Qaida leader By PATRICK QUINN, Associate Press Writer BAGHDAD - A U.S. military helicopter fired a guided missile to kill a wanted al-Qaida in Iraq leader from Saudi Arabia who was responsible for the bombing deaths of five American soldiers, a spokesman said Sunday. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Jar Allah, also known as Abu Yasir al-Saudi, and another Saudi known only as Hamdan, were both killed Wednesday in Mosul. According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers....

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Military judges dismissed charges Monday against a Guantanamo detainee accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan , throwing up roadblocks to the Bush administration‘s attempt to try terror suspects in military courts. Hamdan is "not subject to this commission" under legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year, said Navy Capt. Keith Allred, Hamdan‘s military judge, Monday evening. Hamdan is accused of chauffeuring bin Laden and being the al-Qaida chief‘s bodyguard. The new Military Commissions Act, written to establish military trials after...