Military show trial of Hamdan opens at Guantánamo Bay

The trial is being referred to as Hamdan II. The administration failed in an earlier attempt to try Hamdan before a military tribunal after he won an injunction in 2004 in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Eventually the Supreme Court ruled in a split decision that the trial of Hamdan must meet the standards of a military court martial, and that the military tribunal system as then constituted was inadequate. That failure led to the enlistment of Congress to lend legitimacy to the military tribunal system through the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which has paved the way for the retrying of Hamdan.

The trial marks the first time in the seven years of the so-called war on terrorduring which scores of prisoners have been held at Guantánamo Baythat a detainee has actually faced any sort of trial. The Bush administration has systematically blocked every effort for the inmates to receive legal redress, either through civilian or international courts, the judicial systems of their native lands, or, until Hamdan, the newly-devised military tribunals.

This has not stopped supporters of the prisoners rights from launching suit in the US and a number of nations. Whenever such cases have seen the light of day, US charges against the prisoners have been thoroughly discredited and the barbaric conditions of Guantánamo revealed.