terrorist driver eligible for parole in 5 months
 

Stunningly lenient sentence for former bin Laden driver

Associated Press
Published: Thursday August 7, 2008

A military jury gave Osama bin Laden's driver a stunningly lenient sentence on Thursday, making him eligible for release in just five months despite the prosecutors' request for a sentence tough enough to frighten terrorists around the globe.

Salim Hamdan's sentence of 5 1/2 years, including five years and a month already served at Guantanamo Bay, fell far short of the 30 years to life that prosecutors wanted. It now goes for mandatory review to a Pentagon official who can shorten the sentence but not extend it.

It remains unclear what will happen to Hamdan once his sentence is served, since the U.S. military has said it won't release anyone who still represents a threat. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said Hamdan would likely be eligible for the same administrative review process as other prisoners.

Hamdan thanked the jurors for the sentence and repeated his apology for having served bin Laden.

"I would like to apologize one more time to all the members and I would like to thank you for what you have done for me," Hamdan told the panel of six U.S. military officers, hand-picked by the Pentagon for the first U.S. war crimes trial in a half century.

The military has not said where Hamdan will serve his sentence, but the commander of the detention center, Navy Rear Adm. David Thomas, said last week that convicted prisoners will be held apart from the general detainee population at the isolated U.S. military base in southeast Cuba.

"I hope the day comes that you return to your wife and daughters and your country, and you're able to be a provider, a father, and a husband in the best sense of all those terms," the judge told Hamdan.

Hamdan, dressed in a charcoal sports coat and white robe, responded: "God willing."

Meanwhile....

Guantanamo testimony: U.S. let bin Laden's top bodyguard go
By Carol Rosenberg | The Miami Herald

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/45505.html

Makes sense.

So what's your point? Do you think he should have done harder time? For driving a car? What would we sentence bin Laden's dry cleaner to, life w/o parole?

Terrorist apple-picker still allowed to sell apples!

Why a trial for bin laden's driver and not his top body guard who are likely to know where he is since it is his job to know where his clients are at all times, let alone he has been let go?

Maybe they surgiclly implanted a gps locater in his ass and letting him off easy in hopes he will lead them to the big man himself?

That's a surprisingly good theory, actually.