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Former Bin Laden Driver Hamdan to Leave Guantanamo Bay for Yemen
 The U.S. military has decided to transfer Osama bin Laden's former driver from custody at Guantanamo Bay to his home in Yemen, ending the seven-year saga of a man the Bush administration considered a dangerous terrorist but whom a military jury found to be a low-level aide. Salim Ahmed Hamdan is expected to arrive within 48 hours in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, where he will serve out the rest of his military commission sentence, which is set to expire Dec. 27, two government officials said. The Pentagon's decision to send Hamdan home narrowly avoids what could have been a sticky diplomatic situation, as Bush administration officials had long contended they could hold Hamdan indefinitely. It also prevents President-elect Barack Obama from having to decide Hamdan's fate early in his term. Obama has said he wants to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba. Hamdan's attorneys were poised to fight the assertion that their client could be held indefinitely, a case that probably would have brought Hamdan back to the Supreme Court to challenge his detention. Instead, he will serve out the remaining month of his sentence in a Yemeni prison before being released to his wife and two young children, one of whom has never met him. Hamdan is about 40. "Legally, we absolutely have a right to hold enemy combatants, but politically is he the guy we want to fight all the way to the Supreme Court about?" said a defense official familiar with the release negotiations. "I think we came to the conclusion that, no, he wasn't. This is a win for everyone." A senior diplomatic official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Hamdan had not yet arrived in Yemen said last night that the conditions of Hamdan's release are that Yemen will hold him until Dec. 27 and will then let him go and continue to mitigate any threat he might pose to the United States and its allies, a standard part of U.S. agreements with countries calling for the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Military prosecutors and Hamdan's attorneys said yesterday that they could not confirm his impending release. It is standard Defense Department policy not to discuss detainee transfers until they are completed because of operational security, said Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "Hearing that [Hamdan] may be returned in the near future doesn't surprise me," said Michael Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel at the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. "That's the wise thing to do. But I can't confirm it." Posted by: Fred 2008-11-26 |
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