War Crimes

The U.S. government got a guilty verdict yesterday in its prosecution of Osama bin Laden's driver in the first war crimes trial since World War II. But it's a hollow victory because the military tribunal system, as shaped by the Bush administration, remains a flawed instrument of the war on terror that contravenes the principles of American justice. A jury of six military officers convicted Salim Hamdan of "material support" for terrorism, the lesser of the two charges against him but one broad enough to easily ensnare a small-time player such as the Yemeni.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - A military jury convicted Osama bin Laden's driver yesterday of providing material support to terrorism but acquitted him of the more serious charge of conspiracy. Salim Hamdan quietly collapsed in tears at the defense table, where he had sat through three weeks of government testimony about his involvement with al-Qaida, mostly gleaned from at least 40 interrogations by U.S. federal agents. The Navy captain presiding over the six-person jury slowly read out the verdict on each of 10 separate counts, announcing first that the 38-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education was not guilty on both counts of conspiracy.

Some crimes horrify because of their brutality, others because of the sheer number of their victims. The alleged crimes of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader accused of orchestrating Europe's worst massacre since World War II, were a mad stew of cruelty and mass murder that made the term "ethnic cleansing" synonymous with evil. This week, after a decade-long manhunt, Serbian police finally arrested Mr. Karadzic on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. His capture, though long delayed, should send a message to tyrants everywhere: You can run, you can hide, but sooner or later you will be found and called to account for your despicable actions.

On June 4, 2003, as Liberian President Charles Taylor walked up the steps for the opening ceremony of the Accra Peace Accords in Ghana, I stood in front of the world's press and announced that I had unsealed an indictment charging him with 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community reacted with praise - and condemnation. Politicians and diplomats voiced concern that my announcement had jeopardized the newly organized peace process and hopes for stability in West Africa.

MIAMI - Senior U.S. military officers will be scrambled from around the world this weekend for jury duty at Guantanamo Bay in the Pentagon's first war crimes trial since World War II. In a victory for the Bush administration in its protracted quest to prosecute terror suspects held at Guantanamo, a federal judge in Washington rejected defense attorneys' appeals yesterday to halt the trial of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen,...

WASHINGTON - In 2002, as evidence of prisoner mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay began to mount, FBI agents at the base created a "war crimes file" to document accusations against American military personnel but were eventually ordered to close down the file, a Justice Department report disclosed yesterday. The report, an exhaustive, 437-page review prepared by the Justice Department inspector general, provides the fullest account to date of internal dissent and confusion within the Bush administration over the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Compared with her predecessor, Mayor Sheila Dixon is a giant when it comes to fighting crime ("January killings fewest since '78," Feb. 2). For seven years, Mayor Martin O'Malley blustered, name-called, wasted millions on police overtime pay, futilely arrested thousands of innocent people for petty misdemeanants, alienated the citizenry, prosecutors and many police officers and stubbornly refused to consider more rational approaches that were working to...

American soldiers and Marines in Iraq are convicted of the homicides of noncombatants but sentenced to no confinement. No officer is held accountable for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. These are just two disturbing military legal headlines. Why are court-martial convictions seemingly hard to come by? The homicides of 24 Haditha civilians, including women and children, for example, resulted in court-martial charges against eight Marines, including four officers. Almost two years later, however, charges have been dropped against two of the four alleged shooters and one of the four officers, Capt.

EL FASHER, Sudan -- For a man accused of masterminding massacres, Ahmad Harun seems quite comfortable in the place he is suspected of helping to destroy. He strolls around the grassy compound belonging to the local governor in Sudan's deeply troubled Darfur region, embracing Arab tribal leaders, soldiers and officials who have come to hear the president. Harun, 42, was in charge of the region's security during the height of the attacks on farm villages that sent millions fleeing their homes in 2003 and 2004.

BAGHDAD -- The location was a secret. The timing was unannounced. The prosecutors were not identified as they stood silently in the chilly marble-and-granite courtroom, facing defendants secured in a steel pen. For all the trepidation surrounding yesterday's televised conclusion of post-invasion Iraq's biggest trial, it was a stooped man with a cane on whom everyone fixated, and he needed no introduction as he appeared to hear his fate. Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed "Chemical Ali" for his role in the gassing of tens of thousands of Kurds in 1987 and 1988, was convicted of genocide and sentenced to death by hanging, the seventh associate of former President Saddam Hussein to face the gallows.