WASHINGTON (AFP) — The trial of alleged Al-Qaeda propagandist Ali Hamza Ahmad al-Bahlul opened Monday at the Guantanamo Bay military jail in Cuba, officials said.
"The trial started this morning as scheduled at 9:30. Al-Bahlul was present," said Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon.
Only the second person to face trial in Guantanamo since the facility opened in 2002 for "war-on-terror" suspects, Bahlul, 39, faces charges of terrorism and murder carrying a maximum of life imprisonment before the special military tribunal.
After opening procedures, the two sides were set to quiz the military jury on its objectivity and qualifications in a trial due to last three weeks.
In the first trial of its kind, military jurors in August found Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan guilty of providing material support to terrorism, but rejected stronger terrorist conspiracy charges the government lodged.
Hamdan was sentenced to a net of five more months in jail, after considering the years he already spent in US hands.
But the military trials process has been sharply criticized by defense lawyers and rights activists as sacrificing fundamental principles of justice and denying defendants their basic rights.
"America deserves better than a system that is so incompatible with universal notions of fairness and justice," said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program who is observing al-Bahlul's proceedings.
"These commissions don't even resemble a legitimate justice system. They have become a farce in the eyes of the world," said Dakwar. "There is absolutely no reason to continue this sham a single day longer."
The US military says Bahlul took military training in an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, swore allegiance to the group's head, and helped produce numerous propaganda videos issued by the group.
One of them is directly linked to Bahlul -- a video entitled "The destruction of the American destroyer USS Cole," depicting the October 12, 2000 bombing attack on the US naval ship in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors.
According to the charges, the video aimed "to solicit material support for Al-Qaeda, to recruit and indoctrinate personnel to the organization and objectives of Al-Qaeda and to solicit, incite and advise persons to commit terrorism."
Bahlul is also accused of preparing the video of the last "martyr wills" of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 19-man team which hijacked four passenger jets to crash them into US buildings on September 11, 2001.
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