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1st Trial Of Guantanamo Detainee Starts Today

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The Washington Post

Published: July 21, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Nearly seven years after President Bush declared an "extraordinary emergency" that empowered him to bring terrorists before military judges, Osama bin Laden's former driver is slated to go on trial today in the first test of whether that system can dispense fair and impartial justice.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, accused of ferrying weapons for al-Qaida, will face court proceedings unlike any the United States has seen in decades.

They will unfold before a military commission - the first since the end of World War II - with a jury of uniformed officers and rules that give great deference to the prosecution. Evidence obtained from "cruel" and "inhuman" interrogation methods is admissible in certain circumstances, as is hearsay evidence.

Even if he is acquitted of conspiracy and material support of terrorism charges, he probably will not be released.

Hamdan has been designated an "enemy combatant" by the military, a status that prosecutors said would be unchanged by an acquittal even if international pressure mounts for his release.

The proceedings are also something of a dry run to test the long-delayed military system on an alleged low-level al-Qaida foot soldier so it is primed for the self-confessed terrorist leaders to come.

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