Hamdan Verdict Reached - Guilty On Three Counts

A military jury has found Salim Hamdan guilty of three charges, which could put him in prison for life. He was found guilty of supporting terrorism, but not of conspiracy to commit terrorism. He faces life in prison.

Hamdan, who faces a maximum life sentence, held his head in his hands and wept at the defense table after a Navy captain presiding over the jury read the sentence in a hilltop courtroom on this U.S. Navy base.

The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for later Wednesday.

Defense lawyers had feared a guilty verdict was inevitable, saying the tribunal system's rules seemed designed to achieve convictions, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, Salim Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney.

"I don't know if the panel can render fair what has already happened," Mizer told reporters as the jury deliberated.

Hamdan's attorneys said the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military U.S. court, and that interrogations at the center of the government's case were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

Supporters of the tribunals said the Bush administration's system provided extraordinary due process rights for defendants.

Considering that terrorists caught on the battlefield are not a class of individuals protected under the Geneva Conventions, and would have been summarily executed in prior conflicts, the lengths to which the US has gone to provide rights to these terrorists - up to and including habeas access to US courts undermines the arguments by the defense. Hamdan has had more bites of the apple of justice than most defendants could ever hope to achieve in traditional criminal justice cases.

Cry me a river about the tactics that include sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. Hamdan admits that he was Osama's driver, but claims that he was a mere lackey and didn't partake in Osama's jihad against the US.