Bin Laden's Driver Gets Short Prison Stint

my friends we have been so busy with our celebrity awe and real american hero bashing we have failed to address this very serious issue..my friends i am have been told some celebrities want this guy turned loose on our american streets! probably right in fort wayne!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93389815

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver, was sentenced on Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for providing material support for terrorism. But he will serve only a few months.

Hamdan, a Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, will get credit for the 61 months he has already spent in custody while awaiting trial, according to the military judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred.

The sentence was recommended by the same six military jurors at Guantanamo Bay who convicted Hamdan on Wednesday of material support for terrorism but acquitted him of the more serious charge of conspiracy.

The sentence now goes for mandatory review to a Pentagon official, who can shorten the sentence — but not extend it.

It's unclear what will happen to Hamdan after he serves the time ordered Thursday. The U.S. government has, however, argued it can detain Hamdan and other "enemy combatants" indefinitely as long as the war on terrorism continues.

The trial was the first test of a war crimes tribunal authorized by the Bush administration to try non-U.S. captives on terrorism charges outside the regular civilian and military courts.

During the punishment phase of the trial earlier Thursday, prosecutors had asked the jury to sentence Hamdan to at least 30 years.

They urged jurors to consider life in prison and to make an example of the man. "The government asks you to deliver a sentence that will absolutely keep our society safe from him," said prosecutor John Murphy.

Hamdan, however, pleaded for the jury to spare him a harsh sentence, saying he never joined al-Qaida or knew in advance of its plots but joined bin Laden's motor pool in Afghanistan for the $200 monthly salary.

"I couldn't beg," Hamdan said, reading in Arabic from a prepared statement. "I had to work."

He said he was sorry for the deaths of innocent people on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Pentagon transcript. His apology was not heard by reporters because the sound was turned off to protect classified information.

Allred, who has described Hamdan as a "small player," previously ruled the defendant should receive five years of credit for time served at Guantanamo Bay.

floridafun wrote:my friends we have been so busy with our celebrity awe and real american hero bashing we have failed to address this very serious issue..my friends i am have been told some celebrities want this guy turned loose on our american streets! probably right in fort wayne!

What do you think should be done with him? I doubt he'll be released on American soil.

just clarifying mccains view in june 2007 versus his concerns about celebrity status a 14 months later--just trying to get a fair and balanced grip on his ideas, and a upi release i read a while back...i figure if they start out in kansas they could wind up anywhere eventually..

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-18-gitmo-candidates_N.htm

McCain and Biden advocate moving the Guantanamo prisoners to the military's only maximum-security prison, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That might run into a space crunch: The military prison there can hold 500 prisoners and currently has 450 inmates, according to Janet Wray, Fort Leavenworth spokeswoman.

McCain wants to close Guantanamo, he says, because its existence is damaging U.S. credibility abroad. He also wants to speed up trials. "He would want to speed up the tribunal process for prisoners, because he doesn't support indefinite detentions," McCain spokesman Danny Diaz says.

Last week, former secretary of State Colin Powell said in an ABC interview that he believes the prison should be closed and detainees moved into the federal legal system.


http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/16/Report_No_easy_options_if_Gitmo_closed/UPI-63791216229235/

CHICAGO, July 16 (UPI) -- There are no easy solutions for dealing with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp should it should be closed, officials told the Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper reviewed options that may be available should U.S. officials decide they want to close the military-run prison camp in Cuba, a move that has long been called for by human rights campaigners and has been endorsed by both likely major party U.S. presidential nominees. None of the options were uncomplicated, the newspaper said.

One solution may be to move as many of the 265 remaining prisoners as possible to friendly nations that would detain them on the United States' behalf. But that could be seen as a way to circumvent a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that gave the detainees the chance to have their detentions reviewed by a federal court.

Another option, the Tribune said, would include transporting them to a military prison in the United States or the "Supermax" civilian prison in Colorado, the newspaper said.

But there would also be legal hurdles involved in keeping military prisoners in civilian jails or transferring some of them to the federal justice system for trial, it said.