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Juror: Hamdan Didn't Seem Like Al-Qaida Warrior

The Guantanamo trial of Osama bin Laden's former driver ended last week in a startling defeat for the prosecution. Salim Hamdan was acquitted of conspiring with al-Qaida to attack the United States, and his five-and-a-half year sentence was only a fraction of what the prosecution had requested.

One of the military jury members who decided Hamdan's fate says the prosecution didn't succeed in trying to convince the jury that Hamdan was a hardened al-Qaida warrior.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

John McChesney
Since 1979 senior correspondent John McChesney has been with NPR, where he has served as national editor (responsible for domestic news) and senior foreign editor. Over the course of his career with NPR, McChesney covered a variety of beats and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. His reports can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and newscasts.