Salim Ahmed Hamdan
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- For Mr. Hamdan's Supreme Court case, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan (born 1970) is a Yemeni, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. He admits to being Osama bin Laden's personal driver and bodyguard, but he denies any role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Hamdan's Guantanamo detainee ID is 149.[1] The Department of Defense reports that Hamdan was born in 1970, in Hadramout, Yemen.
Mr. Hamdan was charged in July 2003 with conspiracy to commit terrorism.
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[edit] Legal Moves
[NB] Hamdan was actually charged with conspiracy to commit “offenses triable by military commission,” and not conspiracy to commit terrorism as listed above.
On November 8, 2004 the United States District Court for the District of Columbia halted Hamdan's military commission because no "competent tribunal" had determined whether Mr Hamdan was a POW (as required by the Geneva Conventions), and because regardless of such determination, the commission violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
On October 22, 2004, General John D. Altenburg, the retired officer in overall charge of the commissions, removed three of the six presiding officers to avoid the potential of bias.[2]
The Bush administration appealed the ruling that halted the military commissions. In the meantime, the Department of Defense started Combatant Status Review Tribunals of all the Guantanamo detainees. The tribunals extended from July 2004 through March 2005.
On July 17, 2005, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned Hamdan's appeal.[3][4] The panel said that the Geneva Convention does not apply to members of al-Qaida. The military commissions were set back in motion. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was one of the judges on that panel, and voted against Hamdan's appeal, shortly before being nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
On November 7, 2005, the Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari agreeing to review the decision of the DC Circuit Court.[5] Roberts recused himself due to his earlier participation in the case.
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the military commissions ordered for Hamdan and other detainees violated the UCMJ and the Geneva Convention.[6]
[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Although initially the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a response to judicial challenges because the Bush administration had not fulfilled the United States obligations under the Geneva Conventions, in the end, rather than determining whether the detainees qualified for POW status, they merely determined whether the detainees met the Bush administration's narrow definition of "enemy combatant".
On March 3, 2006, in partial compliance with a court order from US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff, the Department of Defense released the transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals of 317 of the 558 Guantanamo detainees who went through this Tribunal process.
In the March 3rd release the Department of Defense did not tie the detainee's name to their transcript. But, on April 20, 2006, the Department released a separate list of detainee's names, ID numbers and nationalities.
[edit] Summarized transcript
Hamdan's transcript was nine pages long.[7] Eight pages of it were consumed with exhausting translation problems, and trying to clarify which documents, sent by Hamdan's lawyer, to Hamdan, should be submitted to the Tribunal.
Hamdan was asked one question -- was he forced to drive for bin Laden, or was he recruited? Hamdan referred the Tribunal to his affadavit.
There is a hand-written note on the final page of his transcript saying that: "affadavits not provided as they are filed under seal in federal court."
Documents unsealed in early August revealed allegations that Hamdan was beaten, threatened and kept in isolation for upwards of eight months. On July 14, 2004, the Department of Defense formally referred charges against Hamdan, for trial by military commission under the President’s Order of November 13, 2001. He was charged of serving as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard and personal driver. The government also accused Hamdan of delivering weapons to al Qaeda members and purchasing vehicles for Bin Laden’s security detail. In a 5-3 decision on June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court, in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, held that the President exceeded his authority in establishing the military commissions. The Court also ruled that the commissions violated U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions, international treaties signed and ratified by the United States.
[edit] Supreme Court Opinion
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that President Bush did not have the authority to set up military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice(UCMJ) and the Geneva Convention. The Court further held that the commissions violated both. The vote was 5-3, with the Chief Justice not taking part.[6]
Hamdan remains in custody and, following Congress's passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, may yet be tried by military commission.
[edit] References
- ^ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006
- ^ Panel for Detainees' Cases Cut in Half, Washington Post, October 22, 2004
- ^ In limbo at 'Gitmo': Appeals court rules against detainees, Sacramento Bee, July 25, 2005
- ^ High Court Asked to Take Guantanamo Case, Associated Press article from ABC News, August 9, 2005
- ^ Supreme Court to Hear Tribunals Challenge, The Guardian, November 7, 2005
- ^ a b Decisions: Hamdan decided, military commissions invalid, SCOTUSblog, June 29, 2006
- ^ Summarized Transcript (.pdf) from Salim Ahmed Hamdan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 53-61
