Salim Hamdan, the driver for Osama bin Laden convicted of providing material support for terrorism, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison today, Reuters reports. The military jury's sentence takes into effect time served at Guantanamo Bay, making him eligible for release in about 5 months. The US, however, insists it can hold him indefinitely as an "enemy combatant."
At the sentencing hearing, the Yemeni native apologized to US victims of the 9/11 attacks. “I don't know what could be given or presented to these innocent people who were killed,” he said. "I personally present my apologies to them." Prosecutors sought a sentence of 30 years in what was the first US war crimes trial since World War II. (More Salim Ahmed Hamdan stories.)