Bin Laden Driver's Conviction Overturned

Court ruled man's assistance prior to 2001 could not be tried as a war crime

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of Osama bin Laden's former driver and bodyguard, Salim Hamdan, on charges of supporting terrorism, in a long-running case emerging from the American military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that providing support for terrorism was not a war crime at the time of Hamdan's alleged conduct from 1996 to 2001 and therefore could not support a conviction.

Human rights activists hailed the ruling as a blow to the legitimacy of the military commission system.