Trial of Guantanamo detainee can start, judge rules
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, would be the first Guantanamo prisoner to come before a military tribunal. His lawyers are challenging the forum's constitutionality.
MIAMI — The first trial of a Guantanamo prisoner since a war-crimes tribunal was created nearly seven years ago can begin Monday, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday.
Lawyers for Yemeni prisoner Salim Ahmed Hamdan had urged U.S. District Judge James Robertson to halt the trial, contending that the defendant, a former driver and body guard for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, had the right to challenge the tribunal's constitutionality before his trial could go forward.
Robertson's ruling was a victory for the Bush administration, which has sought to speed up prosecution of terrorism suspects as the November election approaches. None of the 265 prisoners at the detention facility in southern Cuba have yet been brought to trail before military commissions.
Robertson ruled that Hamdan can raise any procedural issues during his trial and that questions about the forum's constitutionality can be addressed to civilian courts if he is convicted.
The military judge hearing Hamdan's case at Guantanamo Bay, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, also rejected defense attempts to delay the scheduled Monday start of the trial. Allred rejected motions by Hamdan's lawyers arguing that the Constitution's equal-protection clause would be violated by trying their client in an untested judicial system that allows hearsay and coerced evidence.
Allred has yet to rule on the admissibility of evidence obtained by Guantanamo interrogators after Hamdan was subjected to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and sexual humiliation.
Robertson's ruling probably also clears the way for trial later this fall of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others on murder and terrorism charges for which they could face the death penalty if convicted.
carol.williams@latimes.com
