First U.S. war crimes trial starts at Guantanamo

The Guantanamo naval base became a lightning rod for anger against and criticism of the United States as detainees, held for years without charge as unlawful enemy combatants and denied the rights accorded to formal prisoners of war, complained of torture and abuse.

Human rights advocates condemned the legal system the Bush administration constructed after the September 11 attacks to try those charged with crimes. Defence lawyers say much of the evidence against their clients may have been extracted through coercion.

HILLTOP COURTHOUSE

Hamdan was being tried in a hilltop courthouse overlooking Guantanamo Bay by a jury selected from a pool of 13 U.S. military officers flown in from around the world.

The final jury includes two Army lieutenant colonels, an Army colonel, a Navy captain, an Air Force colonel and a Marine lieutenant colonel. Allred ordered their identities kept secret.

During questioning of the prospective jurors, the judge asked if they would have any bias against Hamdan because he was Arab, Muslim or Yemeni. All said no.

One prospective juror who was eliminated, a Navy captain and former policeman, said he knew the commander of the USS Cole, which was struck by a suicide bombing in 2000 in a Yemeni port, killing 17 American sailors. "No one wants to see shipmates hurt and killed. It angered me," he said.

Another was excused because he knew a prosecution witness.

One officer accepted for the panel was a helicopter pilot who said he had served in Panama, Iraq and Kosovo. Another was an Army officer who said he believed the war on terrorism had started in the 1990s, not after the September 11 attacks.