A mighty Victory against evil !!! Bin Laden's Driver convicted, ROFL !!!

U.S. convicts bin Laden's driver

Wed 6 Aug 2008, 17:08 GMT


By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A military court on Wednesday convicted Osama bin Laden's driver of supporting terrorism but acquitted him on the more serious charge of conspiring with al Qaeda in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two.

The trial of Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan at the remote U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was the first full test of the controversial tribunal authorized by the Bush administration to try foreign captives on terrorism charges outside the regular U.S. court system.

Supporters of the military trial process, including the White House, said it had been vindicated by the split verdicts. Human rights and civil liberties groups, and military defence lawyers, condemned the process.

The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Wednesday afternoon. Hamdan faces a maximum penalty of life in prison but could have been held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant" even had he been acquitted on all charges. Sentencing could take two days.



The six U.S. military jurors deliberated a little over eight hours before reaching their verdict on the Yemeni native, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 after the U.S. invasion that followed the September 11 attacks.

Hamdan, wearing a white turban and long white robe topped with a tan blazer, stood tensely in the courtroom beside his lawyers as the verdict was announced, listening through headphones to the English-Arabic interpreter. He raised his hands and wept into them as the guilty verdict was read.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Hamdan received a fair trial and the military tribunal had been shown to work, while Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the military would now move forward with trying 20 other Guantanamo detainees facing war crimes charges.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said he welcomed the verdict and that the process of bringing terrorists to justice had been too long delayed. Democratic candidate Barack Obama did not issue an immediate reaction.

DEEPLY FLAWED

The American Civil Liberties Union said the tribunal process was deeply flawed and a betrayal of American values. "From start to finish, this has been a monumental debacle of American justice," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero in a statement.

The jury heard two weeks of testimony, including that of 10 federal agents who interrogated Hamdan without warning him that his confessions would be used against him in a criminal trial.

It was the Bush administration's third attempt to try Hamdan, who won a Supreme Court victory that scrapped the first version of the Guantanamo court system in 2006. The charges were twice dropped and refiled.

The charges he was cleared of on Wednesday -- two counts of conspiring with al Qaeda to attack civilians, destroy property, commit murder in violation of the laws of war -- were the only charges against him in the first prosecution attempt.

"The travesty of this verdict now is that had the case gone to trial in 2004 he would have been acquitted of all the charges," said Deputy Chief Defense Counsel Michael Berrigan.

Hamdan was convicted on Wednesday of five counts of providing material support for terrorism, specifically that his personal services to al Qaeda included driving and acting as a bodyguard for a man he knew to be the leader of an international terrorist organization.

The 11-page verdict form was so complicated that the judge called for a yellow highlighter pen and marked the portions the jury president was to read. Jurors were allowed to strike some of the language in the charges, so some specifics of the verdict were not immediately clear.

The rules allow four levels of appeal, first to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo tribunals. She can overturn convictions and shorten the sentence but cannot add convictions or lengthen the sentence.

After that, the case automatically goes to a special military appeals court. If he chooses, Hamdan could then appeal to the U.S. federal appeals court in Washington and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen in Washington; Editing by Michael Christie and David Storey)

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. | Learn more about Reuters

Mr. Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD, Let your love rain down !

Hello,

Always nice to see others on the net caring for each other. A couple of years ago I and many others in a google Athiest news group posted like we do to each other, when a man who professed to be a Doctor named Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD posted some seriously wacked out stuff. Always.. to make a long story short (if you feel like reading the debate we had see the link below,) Andrew had advised someone in a cardiology unit that "Your heart would stop beating if I stopped praying for you". I told him in the forum that he was nuts and if I ever could I would like to get his medical license revoked.



That's the jist of things. Anyways, I found that he has a website where Andrew has listed the people who have made statements against his beliefs in God or Jesus and that they are listed with information when these people have fallen ill or died (,how he finds out.. doctor friends or medical listings? perhaps.. I don't know,) then posts on this website that the almighty "God" has judged them.

Here is the link : http://heartmdphd.com/Convicts/

All you need do is find "platothelapdog" in that list as evidence. I just wanted to point out this is why I think we need to ban religions around the world. It makes people insane.

As for Mr. Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD, all the info you ever need to find about him is scattered in the internet search listings and forums and message boards he goes too. Just google his sad name and you can see all you need to know about this poor insane man, and the insane company he keeps.

Enjoy !

U.S. Agents Can Seize Laptops

U.S. Agents Can Seize Laptops

By Reuters
2008-08-01


PDF Version
Report: The notebooks and other devices can be seized without reason and held indefinitely.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. federal agents have been given new powers to seize travelers' laptops and other electronic devices at the border and hold them for unspecified periods the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Under recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security policies, such seizures may be carried out without suspicion of wrongdoing, the newspaper said, quoting policies issued on July 16 by two DHS agencies.

Agents are empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and other reasons, the newspaper said.

DHS officials said the policies applied to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism.

The measures have long been in place but were only disclosed in July, under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups acting on reports that increasing numbers of international travelers had had their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices removed and examined.

The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes -- as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials, the report said.

The policies require federal agents to take measures to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material. They stipulate that any copies of the data must be destroyed when a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Alan Elsner)

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