| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Bin Laden Driver Conviction Overturned: Federal Appeals Court Says No Ex Post Facto Convictions
In a decision that could ban the military’s favorite methods of prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees, a federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the 2008 military commission conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for a three-judge DC Circuit panel that Hamdan could not be prosecuted for acts that were not crimes at the time they were committed. That’s because the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing laws “ex post facto”—after the fact. The government cannot make something a crime after you’ve already done it and then charge you for doing it. But that’s exactly what Congress seemed to do in 2006 when it made “material support for terrorism” a war crime and encouraged the military to prosecute Gitmo detainees—who had already been imprisoned for years—for committing it.
“This is a massive blow to the legitimacy of the military commissions system,” says Zachary Katznelson, a senior attorney at the ACLU. The commissions “have been trying people for years for something that isn’t even a war crime.” READMOREHERE
