Guantanamo Prosecutors Want Redo of Convict’s Sentence
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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Military prosecutors have asked the judge who presided over the war crimes trial for Osama bin Laden’s driver to order a new sentencing hearing, arguing the detainee should not have received credit for time served, officials said yesterday.
The motion filed Wednesday argues that Salim Hamdan, who is eligible for release by January, cannot receive trial credit for his time detained at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base as an “enemy combatant.”
“We’re not looking to jack up the sentence, just to have it on a legally correct basis,” the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo tribunals, Army Colonel Lawrence Morris, said.
A panel of six American military officers sentenced Hamdan to 5 1/2 years in prison last month, making him eligible for release by January. The judge informed the jurors that time already served would count toward the sentence before they began deliberations.
Hamdan, the only convicted detainee at Guantanamo, was found guilty of supporting terrorism but acquitted of the more serious charge of conspiracy at the first American war crimes trial since World War II.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 30 years to life in prison.
