A US appeals court yesterday overturned the conviction of Osama bin Laden’s former driver and bodyguard, Salim Hamdan, on charges of supporting terrorism, in a long-running case emerging from the American military trials at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said providing support for terrorism was not a war crime at the time of Hamdan’s alleged conduct from 1996 to 2001 and therefore could not support a conviction. Rights activists hailed the ruling as a blow to the legitimacy of the military commission system.
Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan not long after the US invasion of that country following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
– (Reuters)