WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld the conspiracy conviction of a Guantanamo (gwahn-TAHN'-uh-moh) Bay detainee who once served as Osama bin Laden's personal assistant.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 6-3 on Thursday that a military tribunal was authorized to convict Ali Hamza al-Bahlul of conspiracy charges even though conspiracy isn't recognized as an international war crime.
Bahlul was tried and convicted before a military commission under a system created after the Sept. 11 attacks.
A divided three-judge panel of the same court threw out the conviction last year, but the decision was set aside after the full appeals court agreed to reconsider the case.