Bin Laden Driver to Get POW Hearing
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has agreed to decide whether the driver for Osama Bin Laden should be classified as a prisoner of war.
If Salim Ahmed Hamdan is classified as a POW under the Geneva Conventions, he would have to be tried by court-martial rather than the special military tribunals at Guantanamo, Reuters reports.
“Such a finding could cast further doubts on the widely criticized and still evolving Guantanamo court system that has yet to see a trial completed,” according to the Reuters report.
The Bush administration contends detainees are not entitled to POW protections because they are not members of any nation’s regular army.
Navy Capt. Keith Allred ruled Monday (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) that Hamdan had satisfied the requirements for a hearing under the Third Geneva Convention’s Article 5, SCOTUSblog reports.
Article 5 says that if there are doubts about whether those captured for “a belligerent act” are prisoners of war, they should be treated as POWs until their status is determined by a competent tribunal.
