Al-Qaida: Bin Laden's driver is given light sentence
The fact that the military trials taking place in Guantanamo Bay are laughable and unjust is best illustrated by the verdict handed out to bin Laden's driver:
That last sentence really says it all. What was the bloody point of having a trial in the first place if you have decided that certain people held by you will never be released?A Guantánamo Bay prisoner who served as Osama bin Laden's driver could be eligible for release in as little as five months after a jury handed down an unexpectedly light sentence at a much-derided US military tribunal.
A panel of six military officers at the US naval base in Cuba ruled that Yemen-born Salim Hamdan should serve five and a half years, shunning prosecutors' demands for a stretch of at least 30 years.
Hamdan will get credit for the 61 months he has already spent in Guantánamo so his sentence will be completed early next year - although US authorities say they will not set free anybody who represents a threat.
It's blatant that bin Laden's driver is not a threat and will probably be released in five months, as even the judge made clear.
"I hope the day comes when you return to your wife and your daughters and your country," said the judge, navy captain Keith Allred.But what makes these trials a total farce is the fact that Bush can decide that people have to remain at Guantanamo Bay even if the jury acquit them. That's what makes them show trials worthy of some tinpot dictatorship. They are essentially meaningless unless they deliver the verdict that Bush wants.
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2 comments:
Five months coincides with the end of the end of Bush's term. So my question is this: was this the military letting the Bush Administration know just how it feels about his little kangaroo court that they've been forced to set up, or is this a way to make Obama, assuming he wins, look "weak" for allowing Hamdan to go when his time is up (as I presume he would)?
That's a very good point Dave. They really are just passing this problem onto the next administration.
And I presume from the judge's comments that they don't feel Hamdan is a threat of any kind but, you are right, the Republicans will jump all over it if Obama lets him go and claim that he's weak on terrorism.
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