Thursday, a military judge sentenced Salim Hamdan to five and a half years in prison for his conviction for material support of terrorism (as opposed to the life sentence prosecutors asked for). He will receive credit for at least 61 months of the six years that he has already been held at Guantanamo Bay, and his sentence could be completed as soon as December. However, because under the current system the President is the final arbiter of release, President Bush may choose to continue to hold Hamdan indefinitely, despite the adjudication. There’s a great article on the matter here.

Let me reiterate the facts: the Pentagon’s big test-case in the military tribunal system produced a conviction of essentially five months for being Osama bin Laden’s chauffeur. But the U.S. President could still hold Hamdan until he dies.

Supporters of the Military Commissions Act cite the outcome of this case as proof that the tribunals can be impartial and produce fair results. But there are huge flaws in this argument. First, just because a systemically unfair process produced a judicious result in this instance does not mean that it will do so in the future. Remember, the prosecutors asked for a life sentence here. Second, and far more importantly, Hamdan remains in indefinite detention at the whim of the administration. The judge in the case was forced to admit that, despite the sentence, he had no idea when Hamdan would ever be released.

This is untenable. If Hamdan is not released after serving his sentence, the military tribunals will lose any shred of credibility they have. But even releasing him after the completion of the sentence will not rectify the central issue; the rules must be changed so that, after a judicial determination, the executive branch can no longer hold individuals. That is one of the central premises of any civilized legal system, regardless of whether the accused is a citizen or not.

I am not arguing for the release of dangerous individuals. But the Bush administration has insisted for four years that the tribunals are necessary to determine who is a danger to Americans, whom to punish, and whom to release. If even this premise is tossed aside because it is no longer expedient, the tribunals will be rendered meaningless and the entire house of cards will devolve merely to the wishes of the American President. Of such things, despotism is made.

Respect the separation of powers, consider norms of human rights, make rules democratically, and then stick to them.

Today, an American military panel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, convicted Salim Hamdan of material support for terrorism. He was acquitted of conspiracy, but still faces a possible life sentence.

This was the first conviction by the controversial military tribunals and an ambiguous “victory” for the Bush Administration.  The failure to secure a conviction on the more serious of the two charges, conspiracy (i.e., actual participation in terror activities) does nothing to quell concerns about the legality and morality of the highly scrutinized military tribunals.

Hamdan was the subject of the landmark 2006 Supreme Court Case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court held that the military tribunals, as then-constituted, violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. In response, the Republican Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, creating the current system of military trials.

Salim Hamdan was a driver for Osama bin Laden. He was captured by local forces while trying to cross into Pakistan and turned over to the Americans. For years, Hamdan has maintained that, although he was certainly aware of who he worked for and knew of some of the activities in which they were engaged, he was never an active planner or participant. He drove the car, because he needed a job. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man who claims to have planned 9-11 and a top Al Qaeda operative, described Hamdan as a “primitive” Bedouin who just washed cars and changed tires.

Yet somehow, this man became the marquee prosecution in the Bush administration’s efforts to create a hybrid military/criminal court. So today’s result is not the unambiguous win the Bush Administration was surely hoping for. Despite the use of hearsay, secret evidence, and admissions produced under duress, the prosecution could not demonstrate that Hamdan was part of a criminal conspiracy.

The Bush administration may try to spin the acquital as proof that the system works. They’ll say that Hamdan got a fair trial and was convicted of major charges, even if conspiracy could not be proven. But after years of doomsday statements and millions of dollars spent on the effort, they must admit that the man held for long stretches in solitary confinement is no major international criminal and was at-best a marginal figure in Al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan.

The conviction for material support will surely be appealed.