Osama bin Laden’s former driver walked out on his war-crimes tribunal on Tuesday, saying he did not believe justice was possible at the US military base where he has been held for nearly six years.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni, is the fourth alleged al-Qaeda operative at Guantanamo Bay to refuse to participate in the US’ first war-crimes courts since World War II — a system that he says lacks the fairness of traditional US courts.
“I do not want to come to this court because there is no such thing as justice here,” said Hamdan, who smiled as he explained his reasoning in a polite, 40-minute exchange with the judge.
The judge, Navy Captain Keith Allred, said he empathized with Hamdan’s frustrations over his prison conditions and the delays in a trial that has been derailed twice by legal challenges. But he encouraged Hamdan not to fire his attorneys, saying they won a 2006 Supreme Court verdict with his case that struck down an earlier tribunal system.
“You beat the United States once in our system with these attorneys,” Allred said.
After a short recess, the pretrial hearing reconvened without Hamdan at the US Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Hamdan had been captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, allegedly with two surface-to-air missiles in the car.
Earlier on Tuesday, Hamdan’s lead defense attorney said that a second military prosecutor had accused a Pentagon official of manipulating the prosecution of war crime suspects.
The Pentagon official, Air Force Brigadier-General Thomas Hartmann, allegedly told the prosecutor that certain cases against Guantanamo prisoners should be pursued over others to sway public opinion, military defense lawyer Navy Lieutenant-Commander Brian Mizer said.
The prosecutor, Lieutenant-Colonel William Britt, made the allegation in an affidavit submitted in an internal Pentagon investigation of the Office of Military Commissions, which is in charge of prosecuting the Guantanamo prisoners.
Mizer read a portion of the affidavit in court as he seeks dismissal of the charges against Hamdan on the grounds that improper meddling by senior officials has tainted the tribunals.
Britt told the investigators that Hartmann, whose role is to give legal advice to the military commissions, directed him to pursue certain cases that would “seize the imagination of the American public,” Mizer said in court.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat