Bin Laden driver sentenced to Five and Half years

CNN

Osama bin Laden's former driver Thursday was sentenced to 66 months in prison following his conviction on charges of providing material support to al Qaeda.

Salim Hamdan, who has been imprisoned at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, has already been credited with five years served.

Hamdan was found guilty Wednesday of receiving weapons training and transporting and delivering arms. A jury of six military officers rejected charges that he conspired with others to carry out al Qaeda attacks.

Earlier Thursday, during his sentencing hearing, Hamdan told a military court that he never suspected bin Laden was a terrorist until after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Prosecutors weren't buying his story and recommended he be sent to prison for 30 years to life.

Hamdan, speaking through a translator, gave the unsworn testimony one day after six officers convicted him of providing material support to al Qaeda but cleared him of terrorism conspiracy charges.

Hamdan tried to make the case to jurors that he was only a lowly driver, and described his relationship with bin Laden as "normal." Watch how Hamdan described bin Laden »

He said he treated bin Laden as an employee would treat a boss and, in turn, bin Laden treated him in a way that took into account his position.

"I respected him, and he respected me," Hamdan said. "I regarded him, and he regarded me."

He was taken into custody in southern Afghanistan in November 2001. Though the car he was driving contained missiles, he has said all along that the car was borrowed and the missiles weren't his. He repeated his assertions Thursday.

He made some of his comments in a closed session, which the government said was necessary in case classified information was raised.

Hamdan testified he had wanted to settle in his native country, Yemen, but after the 2000 attack by an explosives-laden motorboat on the USS Cole in Yemen's Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors, he and his wife left the country on a pilgrimage.

Hamdan said Yemeni media were blaming the attack on the Israeli Mossad, and he didn't know until later that al Qaeda was behind it.

He also said he was "shocked" to hear that al Qaeda carried out the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"It was impossible in my mind that Osama bin Laden would be behind it," said Hamdan, who was still working for him at the time.

"My view and my thinking had changed completely. It was a big shock for me when someone had treated you with respect and regard, and then you realize what they were up to," he said.

When the U.S.-led war began in Afghanistan after 9/11 Hamdan said, he took his family to Pakistan for their safety, and he left them to return the borrowed car to its owner.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Hamdan became a member of al Qaeda in 1996 and conspired with the group on terrorist attacks. They alleged that Hamdan overheard conversations about 9/11 and claimed to have other information showing he was part of bin Laden's inner circle.

The defense contended Hamdan was a low-level driver who knew little about the workings of bin Laden's al Qaeda network. They said he worked for wages, not to carry out war against America.

New video of Saddam's Corpse on Internet

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

A new video of Saddam Hussein's corpse, with a gaping neck wound, was posted on the Internet early Tuesday, the second leaked release of clandestine pictures from the former leader's hanging.

The video appeared to have been taken with a camera phone, like the graphic video of the hanging which showed guards taunting Saddam in the final moments of his life.

The footage pans up the shrouded body of the former leader from the feet. It apparently was taken shortly after Saddam was executed and placed on a gurney. He was hanged shortly before dawn on Dec. 30.

As the panning shot reaches the head region, the white shroud is pulled back and reveals Saddam's head and neck.

His head is unnaturally twisted at a 90 degree angle to his right. It shows a gaping bloody wound, circular in shape, about an inch below his jaw line on the left side of his neck. His left cheek is marked with red blotches, and there is blood on the shroud where it covered his head.

The newest video leak was likely to increase the angry reaction over the way the execution was carried out. There already has been a global outcry about the undignified manner in which the Shiite-dominated government hanged Saddam, a Sunni.

The 27-second video was posted on an Iraqi news Web site that is known to support Saddam's outlawed Baath Party.

"A new film of the late immortal martyr, President Saddam Hussein," the web site said in a headline over a link to the video.

Voices could be heard on the video. As the shroud is pulled back, one voice says, "Hurry up, hurry up. I'm going to count from one to four. One, two ... . Hurry up you're going to get us into a catastrophe."

Then another voice, apparently the man taking the pictures, says, "Just one second, just one second, Abu Ali. I'm about finished."

Then a third voice says, "Abu Ali, you take care of this."

It was the second clandestine video to have leaked, the first showing Saddam being taunted in his final moments. That clandestine video showed the former leader dropping through the gallows floor as he offered chanted prayers. It ends with his dead body swinging at the end of a rope.

The hanging video was in sharp contrast with an official video that was broadcast not long after Saddam's execution which showed him standing silently on the gallows as the noose was put around his neck. The official video was muted.

The leaked hanging video, however, was shot from the floor of the gallows chamber, looking up at Saddam. Voices could be heard taunting him with cries of "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada," referring to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia and a key support of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The prime minister pushed for Saddam to be executed before the end of 2006 and just four days after the death sentence was upheld by the appeals court. U.S. official sought to delay the execution.

German court gives Moroccan max for 9/11

By SIMONE UTLER, Associated Press Writer

A Moroccan convicted as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was sentenced Monday to the maximum 15 years in prison, minutes after telling the son of a woman killed that day "my future is ruined."

A federal appeals court convicted Mounir el Motassadeq, a friend of three of the suicide pilots, in November of knowingly helping the hijackers and sent the case to a state court in Hamburg for sentencing.

Just before Monday's verdict, the 32-year-old defendant spoke with an American whose mother died on board one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Dominic Puopolo Jr., a co-plaintiff in the case, earlier joined prosecutors in calling for the maximum penalty, urging the judges to consider the "human and emotional cost" of the 2001 attacks.

"Anyone who helped in this has earned stiff punishment," presiding Judge Carsten Beckmann said after announcing Monday's verdict.

When the court granted El Motassadeq a final chance to speak, the slightly built, bearded man turned to Puopolo to say, "I understand your suffering. ... The same thing is being done to me, my kids, my parents, my family — my future is ruined."

Puopolo said he forgave el Motassadeq, and reminded him that he would one day be freed.

"You have a chance to rebuild your life and be back with your family. Others don't," Puopolo said. "Your life is not over, but my mom's is."

Defense lawyers said they may appeal to a European court.

The federal appeals court had ruled that the Hamburg judges wrongly acquitted el Motassadeq in 2005 of direct involvement in the attacks, even though they sentenced him to seven years in prison for belonging to a terrorist group.

The appeals court convicted el Motassadeq as an accessory to the murder of the 246 passengers and crew members aboard the four jetliners used in the attacks, and ordered the state court to set a new sentence.

Ladislav Anisic, a lawyer for el Motassadeq, said they would seek a retrial and maybe appeal to the European Court of Justice.

"We have a clear mandate, and that is to ensure that our client receives the acquittal," he said.

El Motassadeq was a close friend of pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah when they lived and studied in Hamburg. He has acknowledged training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and that he was close to the three hijackers, but insists he knew nothing of their plans.

However, the federal appeals court said evidence showed el Motassadeq knew that the hijackers planned to hijack and crash planes. It found that his actions — for example, transferring money, and helping the hijackers keep up the appearance of being regular university students by paying tuition and rent fees — facilitated the attacks.

The federal court also said it was irrelevant to el Motassadeq's guilt whether he knew of the plot's timing, dimension or targets.

Monday's decision was the latest in a legal saga that started with el Motassadeq's arrest in November 2001 and featured two full trials.

He was convicted and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison in 2003, but that verdict was overturned by a federal court the following year — largely because of lack of evidence from al-Qaida suspects in U.S. custody.

At a retrial that resulted in the 2005 conviction, the U.S. provided limited summaries from the interrogation of, among others, Ramzi Binalshibh, a suspected liaison between the Hamburg hijackers and al-Qaida.