Word: hamdan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...want to be famous," Hamdan replied. "I just want to get out of here...
...Salim Hamdan had spent two years as a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay when he first met Lieut. Commander Charles Swift, his Pentagon-appointed Navy defense lawyer. At the meeting, Swift suggested the possibility of suing President Bush on his behalf...
...This lawsuit, will it make you rich?" Hamdan asked after a long pause...
...Four and a half years later, Hamdan is still on Guantánamo, but Swift's prediction has proved correct. Hamdan is certainly famous. Not only was this Yemeni man, a former driver for Osama bin Laden with a fourth-grade education, at the center of what is perhaps the Supreme Court's most important decision on presidential power ever, he is now the first defendant in America's first war-crimes trials since World War II. Hamdan, in his late 30s, stands accused of providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. If convicted, he could face life in prison...
...despite landing in the center of a historic legal drama, Hamdan remains largely unknown to the American public. His story is still shrouded in mystery. It remains unclear whether he was a dedicated lieutenant of bin Laden's - "a body man for bin Laden," as one of the government's lawyers once described him to me - or, as his defense lawyers will claim, little more than a lowly foot soldier. I've been following Hamdan's story since early 2004, when I started writing a book about his case, and I have spent hundreds of hours interviewing his lawyers...