Judge calls convicted bin Laden driver "small player"

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A military court on Wednesday convicted Osama bin Laden's driver of supporting terrorism but acquitted him on the more serious charge of conspiring with al Qaeda in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two.

The trial of Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan at the remote U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was the first full test of the controversial tribunal authorized by the Bush administration to try foreign captives on terrorism charges outside the regular U.S. court system.

Supporters of the military trial process, including the White House, said it had been vindicated by the split verdicts. Human rights and civil liberties groups, and military defense lawyers, condemned the process.

As the subsequent sentencing hearing began, the judge called Hamdan "a small player" and refused to let the government call an FBI agent to testify about retrieving bodies from the World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said the testimony was irrelevant since Hamdan had been cleared of conspiring with al Qaeda to carry out any attacks.

While Hamdan was convicted on five counts of providing material support for terrorism, the judge said the charges duplicated each other and ordered that he be sentenced only for one count, which he summarized as "driving Mr. bin Laden around Afghanistan."

Hamdan still faces a maximum penalty of life in prison but could have been held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant" even if he had been acquitted on all charges.

CRYING INTO HANDS

The six U.S. military jurors deliberated a little over eight hours before reaching their verdict on the Yemeni native, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 after the U.S. invasion that followed the September 11 attacks.

Hamdan, wearing a white turban and long white robe topped with a tan blazer, stood tensely in the courtroom beside his lawyers as the verdict was announced. He listened through headphones to the English-Arabic interpreter and raised his hands and wept into them as the guilty verdict was read.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Hamdan received a fair trial and the military tribunal had been shown to work. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the military would now move forward with trying 20 other Guantanamo detainees facing war crimes charges.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain welcomed the verdict and said the process of bringing terrorists to justice had been too long delayed.

DEEPLY FLAWED

Democratic candidate Barack Obama said the fact it had taken so long since September 11 to get a guilty verdict for terrorism showed how flawed the U.S. government's legal approach was.

The American Civil Liberties Union also said the tribunal was deeply flawed and a betrayal of American values. "From start to finish, this has been a monumental debacle of American justice," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero.