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9/11 plotter says: 'You don't understand al Qaeda.'
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-02 15:56

First Detainee Tried

Hamdan is the first captive tried in the special tribunals created by Bush to prosecute non-US citizens on terrorism charges outside the regular civilian and military courts.


A guard looks from a tower above the Camp 4 detention facility for terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba July 23, 2008. [Agencies]

The US government charges that in addition to driving bin Laden, Hamdan acted as his bodyguard and had two missiles in his car when captured in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Prosecutors contend he had been part of a broad al Qaeda conspiracy since traveling to Afghanistan in 1996, and therefore shared the blame for al Qaeda attacks, such as the 1998 attacks on US embassies in east Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and September 11.

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Mohammed said those attacks succeeded precisely because they were kept secret from many members of bin Laden's inner circle, from other al Qaeda members and cells, from trainers at the camps and from what he termed "civilian employees" such as cooks, translators and computer engineers.

Referring to bin Laden, he said, "It is not logical that anyone who knew UBL or visited him or associated with al Qaeda (had) to be a terrorist trained to kill people as your bad media put it."

One of the prosecutors had initially warned that "buildings will fall" if any of Mohammed's words were made public, but ultimately did not object to admission of the evidence.

The military jurors showed no emotion as they read his words. In order to decide whether Hamdan's acts were war crimes under the 2006 law authorizing the Guantanamo tribunals, they must also decide when the US war against al Qaeda began.

The defense contends that the US military had no "rules of engagement" identifying al Qaeda as a target until shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Whatever the verdict, the Bush administration may claim victory in seeing the first trial completed.

Military defense lawyers have fought vigorously to prevent trials they contend are rigged to convict and violate international law, and won a 2006 US Supreme Court ruling that struck down the first Guantanamo court system.

"I don't know that I'd characterize it as a success and I wouldn't call it a trial," Deputy Chief Defense Counsel Michael Berrigan told journalists. "I think it's an obscenity."

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