A US military tribunal found a man alleged to be Osama bin Laden's media secretary guilty of conspiring with al-Qaeda, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism in a verdict announced today.
Yemeni prisoner Ali Hamza al Bahlul is the second man to be convicted by a jury in the war crimes court at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He faces life in prison and could learn his sentence today.
The jury of nine US military officers deliberated about four hours before reaching their verdict on Friday after a weeklong trial.
FBI interrogators testified that Bahlul scripted the videotaped wills of two September 11 hijackers and boasted of making a two-hour al-Qaeda commercial designed to recruit suicide bombers.
The recruitment video was filled with bloody images of violence against Muslims and portrayed the attack on the USS Cole as part of "The Solution."
It praised the suicide bombers who drove a boat full of explosives into the side of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000, killing 17 US sailors.
Three New York men who saw the video at a training camp in Afghanistan testified that they were so horrified they opted not to join al-Qaeda and fled back to the United States.
Jurors agreed the recruitment video was a solicitation to commit murder, even if it failed to recruit that trio.
The government's evidence in the special tribunal went unchallenged. Bahlul was not allowed to act as his own attorney and tried to fire the US military lawyer he considers an enemy.
The lawyer, Air Force Major David Frakt, said it "goes against all my training and instincts," but honored Bahlul's request not to put on any defense or question witnesses.
He sat mutely as an FBI agent who interrogated Bahlul in early 2002 at Camp X-Ray, the chain-link cages where Guantanamo captives were held for the first four months of the detention operation, described it as a "very comfortable" place where no one abused or even raised his voice at a detainee.
Reuters