Verdict reached but not read at Guantanamo

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - U.S. military jurors reached a verdict on Friday in the Guantanamo trial of Osama bin Laden's accused media chief, who is accused of inciting murder and inspiring September 11 hijackers.

But the verdict will not be announced until Yemeni defendant Ali Hamza al Bahlul, who could face life in prison, is brought back into the courtroom on Monday, one day before the U.S. presidential election.

Moving prisoners from the detention centre to the hilltop court at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a laborious process and the judge, Air Force Col. Ron Gregory, wanted to give the guard staff the weekend off.

The jury of nine U.S. military officers deliberated about four hours before reaching their verdict on charges that Bahlul conspired with al Qaeda to attack civilians, solicited murder and gave material support for terrorism.

"You are a terrorist and a war criminal," the prosecutor, Army Maj. Dan Cowhig, told Bahlul in closing arguments.

The Yemeni defendant and his U.S. military lawyer sat in silent protest throughout the trial but Bahlul's earlier words to Guantanamo interrogators formed key evidence against him.

The interrogators testified that Bahlul scripted the videotaped wills of two September 11 hijackers who were his roommates in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1999.

"He whispers in the ear of Mohamed Atta and Ziad al Jarrah," Cowhig said. "He motivated them to shred themselves and hundreds of others in the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania."