Salim Hamdan

Who is Salim Hamdan?

Salim Ahmed Hamdan is a Yemeni man, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to November 2008. He admits to being Osama bin Laden's personal driver and said he needed the money.

He was originally charged by a military tribunal with "conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism," but the process of military tribunals was challenged in a case that went to the US Supreme Court. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court ruled that the military commissions as set up by the United States Department of Defense were flawed and unconstitutional. DOD continued to hold Hamdan as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo.

After passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Hamdan was tried on revised charges beginning July 21, 2008, the first of the detainees to be tried under the new system. He was found guilty of "providing material support" to al Qaeda, but was acquitted by the jury of terrorism conspiracy charges. He was sentenced to five-and-a-half years of imprisonment by the military jury, which credited him for his detention as having already served five years of the sentence. A Pentagon spokesman noted then that DOD might still classify Hamdan as an "enemy combatant" after he completed his sentence, and detain him indefinitely.