Tuesday was a good day for two high-profile prisoners — facing trial on 9/11-related charges — in the U.S. Cuban prison at Guantanamo Bay at the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia circuit.
The alleged mastermind behind the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was permitted to wear camouflage clothing in court as per his wishes, while a former Yemeni driver for Osama bin Laden Salim Hamdan had his terror conviction vacated.
At a pre-trial hearing,a military judge said that Sheikh Mohammed could wear the camouflage outfit which, as per his lawyers’ request, bore the label of a U.S. clothing maker Rothco, which describes itself as “America’s foremost wholesale supplier of military and outdoor products”.
Sheikh Mohammed’s legal team had argued that he considered himself a “prisoner of war and wanted to wear clothing similar to what he wore as a Mujahideen fighter”. The Guantanamo prison commander was said to have previously forbidden it.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, while hearing Hamadan’s case, argued that “the charge against Mr. Hamdan — providing material support for terrorism — was not a recognised international war crime at the time of his actions”. In 2006, the Supreme Court had, in a landmark ruling, struck down Bush Administration’s policy of military commissions.
While admitting that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 enacted by the U.S. Congress after Hamdan’s Supreme Court victory would require the war-crime charge to be pressed against Hamdan, the Court said this mechanism could not apply retroactively.
“Because we read the Military Commissions Act not to retroactively punish new crimes, and because material support for terrorism was not a pre-existing war crime under 10 U.S.C. § 821, Hamdan’s conviction for material support for terrorism cannot stand”.
In 2008, Hamdan was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda, by a panel of six military officers, following which he was slapped with a five-and-a-half year jail term. As he had already spent six years in custody at Guantanamo Bay, he was released shortly thereafter.
