Word: hamdan
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...Hamdan was not an obvious choice for this historic role. He didn't appear to be a high-ranking officer of al-Qaeda, nor was he known to have participated in any specific terrorist operations. But from America's perspective, he did have certain things going for him. Because the military-tribunal system was brand-new, the government thought it made sense to try some lower-ranking operatives first, in case anything went wrong. Hamdan had also been in U.S. custody since his capture and had not been rendered to any foreign countries for interrogation, which might open the door...
There is evidence, though, that some of the information Hamdan provided to his interrogators was extracted by coercion. According to Hamdan, the Northern Alliance soldiers hog-tied him with electrical wire, placed a hood over his head and turned him over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty. At the U.S.'s Bagram air base, Hamdan was allegedly kept bound hand and foot 24 hours a day. During his early interrogations, he claimed that he was in Afghanistan working for a Muslim charity. But after another detainee identified him as bin Laden's driver, Hamdan confessed...
...Hamdan was flown to Guantánamo Bay, where he became detainee No. 149. Eighteen months later, President Bush chose him from among thousands of detainees in U.S. custody to be the first Arab defendant in the military tribunals...
...things didn't turn out as the Administration planned. In 2004, Swift, Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed lawyer, persuaded his client to reject the government's tentative offer for a guilty plea--20 years' imprisonment in exchange for full cooperation, including testifying at the military commissions of other detainees. Together with a young constitutional-law professor named Neal Katyal, Swift built a defense that delayed Hamdan's military tribunal for years as it gradually made its way through the courts. Hamdan's time at Guantánamo was turbulent. Officials characterized him as a problematic prisoner, a rabble rouser who turns every...
...spring of 2006, Hamdan's lawsuit--Hamdan v. Rumsfeld--reached the Supreme Court, which gave Hamdan and his lawyers a sweeping victory. A majority of Justices found that the President's military tribunals were unlawful. In response, the Administration redoubled its efforts, pressing Congress to authorize the military tribunals, which it did by passing the Military Commissions Act during the waning days of the Republican Congress in the fall of 2006. Hamdan was re-charged under the Military Commissions Act and moved into a new maximum-security facility, permitted only an hour or so of indirect contact with other detainees...