A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a bid by a Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo Bay to have a new military jury reconsider his life sentence for conspiring to commit war crimes as a propaganda chief for Al Qaeda and an aide to Osama bin Laden.
Earlier appeals struck down two of the three crimes for which Ali Hamza al-Bahlul was convicted in 2008.
His lawyer, Michel Paradis, had argued that a new sentencing jury should be assembled at the base to hear evidence and arguments on whether his remaining conspiracy conviction deserved a lesser sentence.
Mr. Paradis also sought reconsideration of the sentence because, a year after Mr. Bahlul’s trial, Guantánamo’s military commission system was overhauled to explicitly prohibit the use of evidence “obtained by the use of torture or by cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the sentence should stand and that the prisoner’s lawyers brought up the question of torture too late in the appellate process.
Persons:
Osama bin Laden, Ali Hamza al, Bahlul, Michel Paradis, Paradis, Bahlul’s, “, ”
Organizations:
Al, U.S ., Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Locations:
Guantánamo, Al Qaeda