Hamdan gets 5 and a half years--could be out in five months

[Lemon law]

In a fairly light sentence given the split military commission verdict for Ossama Bin Laden,
former driver, Salim Hamdan got only 5.5 years instead of the 30 years the prosecution was seeking. Making him eligible for some future legal limbo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...SGY5aX.Za0ddwE1u2s0NUE

At least from my desire to table questions of the verdict's constitutionality or legitimacy, the question I ask is one of math.

Here Hamdan was captured sometime in 2001, some seven years ago, but only gets credit for five years and one month time served?????

Can someone explain this anomaly in mathematics?

 

[marincounty]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In a fairly light sentence given the split military commission verdict for Ossama Bin Laden,
former driver, Salim Hamdan got only 5.5 years instead of the 30 years the prosecution was seeking. Making him eligible for some future legal limbo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...SGY5aX.Za0ddwE1u2s0NUE

At least from my desire to table questions of the verdict's constitutionality or legitimacy, the question I ask is one of math.

Here Hamdan was captured sometime in 2001, some seven years ago, but only gets credit for five years and one month time served?????

Can someone explain this anomaly in mathematics?

It's Bush math. Tax cuts produce more income, for example.

 

[GTKeeper]

I am sure they are not counting the time as 'an enemy combatant' or whatever that lame term they use.

 

[Sinsear]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In a fairly light sentence given the split military commission verdict for Ossama Bin Laden,
former driver, Salim Hamdan got only 5.5 years instead of the 30 years the prosecution was seeking. Making him eligible for some future legal limbo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...SGY5aX.Za0ddwE1u2s0NUE

At least from my desire to table questions of the verdict's constitutionality or legitimacy, the question I ask is one of math.

Here Hamdan was captured sometime in 2001, some seven years ago, but only gets credit for five years and one month time served?????

Can someone explain this anomaly in mathematics?

Who cares; it's his lucky day he didn't get the whole 30 years.

 

[marincounty]

When Reagan was president, this man would have been called a "freedom fighter", and applauded.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: marincounty
When Reagan was president, this man would have been called a "freedom fighter", and applauded.

When Reagan was President we would have never gotten into this mess and Saddam would have just been bought off.

 

[ChrisFromNJ]

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In a fairly light sentence given the split military commission verdict for Ossama Bin Laden,
former driver, Salim Hamdan got only 5.5 years instead of the 30 years the prosecution was seeking. Making him eligible for some future legal limbo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...SGY5aX.Za0ddwE1u2s0NUE

At least from my desire to table questions of the verdict's constitutionality or legitimacy, the question I ask is one of math.

Here Hamdan was captured sometime in 2001, some seven years ago, but only gets credit for five years and one month time served?????

Can someone explain this anomaly in mathematics?

Who cares; it's his lucky day he didn't get the whole 30 years.

30 years for what?

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: ChrisFromNJ

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In a fairly light sentence given the split military commission verdict for Ossama Bin Laden,
former driver, Salim Hamdan got only 5.5 years instead of the 30 years the prosecution was seeking. Making him eligible for some future legal limbo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...SGY5aX.Za0ddwE1u2s0NUE

At least from my desire to table questions of the verdict's constitutionality or legitimacy, the question I ask is one of math.

Here Hamdan was captured sometime in 2001, some seven years ago, but only gets credit for five years and one month time served?????

Can someone explain this anomaly in mathematics?

Who cares; it's his lucky day he didn't get the whole 30 years.

30 years for what?

Lack of a hack license!:disgust:

 

[GooeyGUI]

Text

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 7 -- A former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced by a military jury Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for supporting terrorism, a far shorter term than demanded by government prosecutors. The judge gave Salim Ahmed Hamdan credit for five years and one month of his pretrial incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, making him eligible for release from custody in five months.

Much more at the link.

 

[jpeyton]

Awesome. Glad the jury had some sense.

There is hope for America yet.

 

[Aimster]

He was living in Afghanistan
Osama was like the man in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a dirt poor country.

Hell if I were him I would have taken the job too.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Awesome. Glad the jury had some sense.

There is hope for America yet.

For must of us there never stopped being hope in the first place.

 

[Dari]

What a stupid case. Going after the driver. Who's next, the maid?

 

[TechAZ]

Originally posted by: Dari
What a stupid case. Going after the driver. Who's next, the maid?

Uhhh....even in US law aiding and abetting a criminal is a crime. It's not like he was driving around some pot dealer.

 

[Jaskalas]

We?re going to elect Republicans so terrorism isn?t treated as a criminal action anymore! Oh, wait ? they just did that anyway.

 

[MadRat]

I thought something was wrong with the math, too. Seemed like he would of been let go by the ruling for time served. Hell, he should be able to backcharge for the extra two years. One free kick of a cat or something.

 

[PokerGuy]

I wondered about the time served issue myself when I saw the headlines, it makes no sense. Then again, very little about the whole misguided Gitmo fiasco makes sense, the whole thing has been a swift kick in the nuts for American ideals and the image of the US around the world.

 

[Brovane]

What is really messed up is that the Administration is saying that even after he servers his term he still will be held as a enemy combatant until the war on terror is done.

 

[RightIsWrong]

I saw a blurb this AM on the news that after the 5 months are served and he is released, they are going to re-declare him an enemy combatant once again and continue to hold him. I'll see if I can find confirmation of this.

Edit: I was able to find this nice little "Maybe we will, maybe we won't" quote:

Defense lawyers said Hamdan will have finished his sentence in four months and 22 days.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he could not speculate whether Hamdan would be freed this year or remain imprisoned as an "enemy combatant."

"I can reassure you that the Defense Department is hard at work on this issue," he said.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: TechAZ

Originally posted by: Dari
What a stupid case. Going after the driver. Who's next, the maid?

Uhhh....even in US law aiding and abetting a criminal is a crime. It's not like he was driving around some pot dealer.

Your two sentences are contradictory. And I think you're smarter than this. It seems like a frustrated move on our part: "We can't get the real guy so let's go after the driver."

 

[conehead433]

Out in six months bexause of time already served. Plenty enough for being convicted of being a driver.

 

[Lemon law]

Did we haul Hitler's driver or Saddam Hussien's driver in and basically charge them with war crime's? Face the facts, the guy has a fourth grade education and needed a job.

But its still a brilliant ploy by the military to establish some low grade legitimacy for the proceedings and its no accident, IMHO, that the Hamdan trial was picked for lead off.

Get a conviction on a lesser charge while dropping the totally unsustainable, and then show the world that the US has some mercy by imposing a light sentence and is not quite the hanging judge everyone expected. Which produces a glowing Hamdan apologizing for his misdeeds and those he he unknowingly victimized while Hamdan thinks he will be free in just five months.

Which will then provide a glowing example to counter subsequent trials in which the US military tribunals act even worse than the Spanish Inquisition and the the Salem witch trials all rolled up into one.

It may fool some US citizens, give cover to some of the worse dictators with similar justice systems, but its still a blot on the world.