Salim Hamdan

In a development that will only fuel suspicions that the Obama administration is indeed planning to revive the Bush administration’s much-criticized system of trials by Military Commission at Guantánamo (as flagged up by defense secretary Robert Gates in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last week), I have just learned that the Commissions’ Chief Prosecutor, [...]

On Sunday 11 January, just nine days before the administration of George W. Bush hands over the reins of power to Barack Obama, the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo — perhaps the most bleakly iconic symbol of the outgoing administration’s hubris — marks its seventh anniversary. A lawless experiment The facts about the prison [...]

With less than two weeks until the Bush administration leaves office, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, reports on developments — or the lack of them — during the last month in the Military Commissions, the much-criticized trial system for “terror suspects” that was [...]

The repatriation from Guantánamo of Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, to serve out the last month of his sentence for providing material support for terrorism in Yemen, will surely hasten the demise of the prison, as promised by President-Elect Barack Obama, even though the circumstances of Hamdan’s departure were as furtive [...]

Citing “several US sources,” CNN reports that Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, who was convicted in a trial by Military Commission at Guantánamo during the summer for providing material support for terrorism, is to be flown out of Guantánamo on Monday, to serve the rest of his sentence in his native [...]

In a previous article, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, examined the reasons why Barack Obama must stick to his election promise to close the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, focusing on the Bush administration’s callous disregard for domestic and international laws, its pursuit of unfettered executive power, the disturbing effects of [...]

As Barack Obama and his transition team begin looking at ways to fulfill the President-Elect’s pledge to close Guantánamo, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, recalls that Barack Obama also promised to “reject the Military Commissions Act” (the legislation that revived the system of “terror trials” conjured up in the Office of Vice President [...]

As the Olympics and the war in Georgia threaten to sweep all before them, the significance of the lenient sentence handed down by a military jury to Guantánamo prisoner Salim Hamdan in the first full US war crimes trial since the Nuremberg Trials — and the government’s response to it — is in danger of [...]

In the Wall Street Journal, Jess Bravin scored a media coup by securing the first interview with one of the jurors in the trial by Military Commission of Salim Hamdan, who decided, after the contentious two-week trial, that, although Hamdan was guilty of providing material support for terrorism, he was not guilty of the graver [...]

The aftermath of Salim Hamdan’s trial at Guantánamo was a busy time, as TV and radio stations called Reprieve — and contacted me through my website — for comments on the verdict and its significance. First up was Afshin Rattani of Press TV, who called on Wednesday shortly after the verdict was announced (but before [...]