USA: Back to the bigger picture: Salim Hamdan sentenced after first military commission trial at Guantánamo

USA: Back to the bigger picture: Salim Hamdan sentenced after first military commission trial at Guantánamo

Salim Hamdan, the Yemeni national convicted on 6 August 2008 by military commission of ‘providing military support for terrorism’, was sentenced to five and half years. Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year prison sentence. However, his future remains unclear, due largely to the Military Commissions Act. Amnesty International calls for the military commission system to be abandoned and for such trials to be conducted in the ordinary US federal criminal courts.