WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US court named a judge Wednesday to decide whether Osama bin Laden's ex-driver, Guantanamo Bay inmate Salim Hamdan, can stop his military commission from going ahead as planned later this month.
Judge James Robertson will decide whether such commissions have a right to judge prisoners held at the detention camp in Cuba, after last month's Supreme Court ruling that inmates could challenge their detention in a civilian court.
"It has been determinated that one initial issue to be decided will be a motion to enjoin a military commission at Guantanamo from going forward," the Washington DC federal court said in a statement.
Robertson will look at Hamdam's case first because he is the first to be put on trial since Guantanamo opened in 2002. The decision will indicate how the US justice system will respond to the Supreme Court ruling.
The government has said it wants to bring 60 to 80 Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, although only about 20 have so far been charged.
The commissions are highly controversial, notably because they accept indirect witness statements as evidence, as well as that obtained under duress.
Hamdan, who was born in 1970 in Yemen, is a self-confessed former driver and bodyguard for Al-Qaeda mastermind Bin Laden. He is due before a military commission at the detention camp on Cuba between July 21 and 31.
Meanwhile, the same federal court said that another judge, Thomas Hogan, should take over the 249 cases filed by lawyers of Guantanamo inmates over the past few years, and rule on procedural issues that are common to them all.
"The judges of this court are committed to deciding these cases as expeditiously as possible," Chief Judge Royce Lamberth said in a statement.
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