Bin Laden's Former Driver Convicted by Military Tribunal

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 6 -- Osama bin Laden's former driver was convicted on one charge and acquitted on another Wednesday, handing the Bush administration a partial victory in the first U.S. war crimes trial in a half-century but failing to settle the debate over whether the proceeding was just. ....

The sentencing hearing will start at 2 p.m. Eastern time and is expected to last for the rest of the day Wednesday. Prosecutors are expected to present "aggravating factors" they say call for a harsh punishment, while defense attorneys introduce evidence of mitigation. The same two-thirds vote applies to sentencing, unless the term is more than 10 years. That would require the vote of three-fourths of the jurors.

The verdict only intensified a dispute over whether Hamdan's conviction was preordained in an unfair system -- or whether military trials are appropriate for people who allegedly committed heinous acts against the United States.

President Bush first empowered the modern military commissions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reversing a decade-long U.S. policy of trying accused terrorists in civilian courts. ...