The Pentagon intends to press forward with the trials of at least 20 more detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a spokesman said, after a military jury handed down a guilty verdict in the first such trial.
Military jurors found Salim Hamdan not guilty of terrorist conspiracy charges, but convicted him on the lesser charge of material support for terrorism.
"We respect that decision," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "We fully intend to move forward with additional prosecutions on the 20 other cases that are currently in the military commission system."
The Hamdan trial was the first test of a special legal system created to try "war on terror" suspects captured outside the United States and held at a prison on a US naval base in Cuba.
Critics have attacked the system as tilted against the defendant, allowing the use of hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion.
But Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the split verdict was "the clearest sign yet the judicial system down there works."
"These proceedings should show the world that we are committed to providing detainees with due process while also making sure justice is served."
A sentence has yet to be handed down, but Hamdan, a former driver for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, faces a maximum of life in prison.
Wednesday's verdict and the sentence will be reviewed by the official who oversees the military commission system, Susan Crawford, and then by a Court of Military Commission Review.
Hamdan also can appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia and the US Supreme Court.
Whitman said Hamdan will be separated from the general population to serve out his sentence. Even if he serves out his sentence, he is still subject to indefinite detention as an enemy combatant, Whitman sai
