Court Throws Out bin Laden Driver's Conviction

Salim Ahmed Hamdan's activities weren't a war crime at the time: US court
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 16, 2012 10:53 AM CDT
Court Throws Out bin Laden Driver's Conviction
In this undated file photo, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, is seen at unknown location.   (AP Photo/Photo courtesy of Prof. Neal Katyal)

Osama bin Laden's former driver is off the hook in his conviction for supporting terrorism. A federal appeals court in Washington has overturned Salim Ahmed Hamdan's conviction in a 3-0 ruling, the AP reports. Its reasoning: When Hamdan was involved in the activities that landed the conviction, material support for terrorism wasn't a war crime under international law. "If the government wanted to charge Hamdan with aiding and abetting terrorism or some other war crime that was sufficiently rooted in the international law of war at the time of Hamdan's conduct, it should have done so," a judge wrote. The former Guantanamo prisoner has long since been freed and returned to Yemen, where he's said to have a new job behind the wheel—as a taxi driver. (More Salim Ahmed Hamdan stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X