August 09, 2008	Saturday	Sha’aban 6, 1429

GUANTANAMO BAY, Aug 8: A jury of US military officers sentenced Osama bin Laden’s driver on Thursday to just five-and-a-half years in prison — most of which he has already served — in the first US war crimes tribunal since World War Two.

The same six jurors who convicted Yemeni prisoner Salim Hamdan of providing material support for terrorism delivered a sentence that was far short of the 30 years prosecutors had sought.

The Defence saw it as a slap at the controversial tribunal system set up by the Bush administration to try foreign captives on terrorism charges outside the regular US civilian and military courts.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, gave Hamdan credit for 61 months of the time he has been held at Guantanamo, so he could finish his sentence in five months.

“After that, I don’t know what happens,” he told Hamdan.

“I hope the day comes when you return to your wife and your daughters and your country,” the judge said, adding “Inshallah,” the Arabic for “God willing.”

Hamdan raised his hands high in the air and waved in a display of elation and victory as the guards led him out of the courtroom at the remote US naval base in Cuba.

But the Pentagon said Hamdan, the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried by the tribunal system, would continue to be held as an “unlawful enemy combatant” after finishing his sentence.

Defence lawyers called the short sentence a stinging rebuke to a fatally flawed trial system that one of them, Joseph McMillan, said was “built by political ideologues who hoped the military would serve as their pawns.”

“It was all for show if Mr Hamdan does not go home in December. If he simply goes back to the same cell, why did we all come down here?” said Charles Swift, a retired navy lawyer first appointed to represent Hamdan five years ago.

“He needs to go home. This needs to end,” Swift said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that once Hamdan finished his sentence he would be eligible for an annual review process to determine whether he is eligible for release or transfer from Guantanamo.—Reuters