Judge Refuses to Postpone Trial of Bin Laden’s Driver

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Judge Refuses to Postpone Trial of Bin Laden’s Driver

By SCOTT SHANE and WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: July 17, 2008

A federal judge on Thursday refused to postpone
the first military trial set for next week at the
Guantánamo Bay detention center, rebuffing a last-
minute plea from lawyers for Salim Hamdan, an
accused member of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s
former driver.

Judge James Robertson, of the district court in
Washington, ruled that Mr. Hamdan’s claims that the
military commission he faces is unconstitutional
can be appealed to a civilian court only after his
military trial is completed.

The ruling clears the way for the start of the first
trial of a detainee at the prison complex in Cuba,
opened in 2002 to hold prisoners captured in the
campaign against terrorism. The trials have been
delayed for years, in part by courts that found
legal fault with the commissions created to try
people designated by the government as “unlawful
enemy combatants.”

It was Judge Robertson who ruled in 2004 that the
original procedures set for military commissions by
President Bush were inadequate, a finding later upheld
by the Supreme Court. In response, Congress in 2006
passed the Military Commissions Act, setting up new
procedures for the trials.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/washington/17cnd-detain.html?hp

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Earlier LBN thread: European officials ask judge to delay Guantanamo trial for Osama bin Laden's former driver

[ohio2007]

1. Bin Laden driver describes treatment at Guantanamo

snip

Hamdan took the stand wearing a traditional white headdress and white gown under a Western-style beige suit jacket. He appeared detached and sombre.

His lawyer, Charles Swift, walked his client through his captivity from his capture in Afghanistan in November 2001, where he said he was beaten, to his years at Guantanamo where he reluctantly described how a female interrogator had touched him while soldiers stood nearby.

"She came very close with her whole body towards me," Hamdan said through an interpreter, his eyes downcast at times.
Pressed by Swift for details, he said: "She touched me above the knee." "Where?" Swift asked. "Did she touch your thigh?" "Yes," he said, adding that he began answering her questions after she implied she was going to touch his groin.

A number of detainees have accused female interrogators of violating Muslim sexual taboos by touching them provocatively.

snip

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN1538025320080716


We should send an army of amazons their way...watch em scurry when outnumbered by women