July 23, 2008
Two Sides at Guantánamo Trial Paint Starkly Different Pictures of the Defendant
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba -- Salim Hamdan, the first detainee to face a war crimes trial here, played a vital part in Osama bin Laden's jihad, a military prosecutor said Tuesday in his opening statement.
Mr. Hamdan's job as driver and bodyguard in Afghanistan was "protecting and assisting Osama bin Laden elude detection, capture and, ultimately, justice," the prosecutor, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy D. Stone, told a panel of six military officers who will decide the defendant's guilt or innocence.
The defense painted a different picture of Mr. Hamdan, as little more than a wage worker, a member of the motor pool on Mr. bin Laden's personal payroll.
"He was not, he is not, and he never has been a terrorist," Harry H. Schneider Jr., one of Mr. Hamdan's civilian lawyers, said in his own opening remarks.
The dueling presentations were suggestive of those at civilian trials. But on the first full day of the proceedings, there were also reminders of the differences permitted by the 2006 law that established the military commission system.
For instance, Ali Soufan, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, testified that Guantánamo was the only place where he did not tell people he interrogated that they had a right not to give self-incriminating statements, the warning familiar from decades of police shows. Mr. Soufan noted that those he questioned elsewhere were often destined for trial in federal courts.
One of the prosecutors, John Murphy, then seemed to struggle in noting for the jury why defendants elsewhere were told of rights absent at Guantánamo. "All right," he asked rhetorically of Mr. Soufan after a pause, "that's a different court system than the commission system here?"
In another stark difference, the military court received its first classified evidence Tuesday, photographs in red envelopes marked "secret" that were not made public, of course, to the small courtroom audience.
That audience included no members of the general public: none are permitted at this tightly controlled Navy base, and so by definition there cannot be "court watchers," the colorful collection of retirees and eighth-grade civics students who sometimes wander into courts in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York. Reporters, who visit only with Pentagon approval, are escorted at all times -- to court, to meals and, occasionally, to the beach.
The court also heard evidence from its first mystery witness, identified only as "Sergeant Major A," a member of military intelligence who was the first American to interrogate Mr. Hamdan, in Afghanistan. Sergeant Major A described keeping his own face covered with a mask, for security purposes, while videotaping an interrogation of Mr. Hamdan.
The identities of the six members of the panel were never mentioned in court. A copy of a special order issued by the judge, Capt. Keith J. Allred, a Navy officer, had been placed on each seat in the courtroom, directing news organizations that those identities "will not be reported or otherwise disclosed in any way" without the judge's approval.
The trial has drawn reporters from around the world, though many got here late. A handful arrived more than two weeks ago and covered pretrial motions. The Pentagon arranged for 26 others to fly in Tuesday, but they did not arrive until about 11 a.m., after the opening statements were complete.
The statements they missed included the prosecutors' claim that Mr. Hamdan -- charged with conspiracy and material support for terrorism, and facing up to life in prison if convicted -- had been close enough to Mr. bin Laden to have heard about some Qaeda attacks before they occurred.
And after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Commander Stone said, Mr. Hamdan heard Mr. bin Laden boasting that the target of the hijacked plane that had crashed in Shanksville, Pa., "would have been the dome" -- presumably the Capitol.
In the defense's opening remarks, Mr. Schneider appealed to the panel members to view their task at Guantánamo as extraordinary. "You sit at an important time," he said, "at a location that will have an important place in our nation's history, while the world watches."