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Behind the Scenes: Inside the Guantanamo courtroom

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  • Salim Hamdan is first Guantanamo Bay detainee to face a military tribunal
  • Both government and defense lawyers claim victory with verdict
  • Light sentence raises questions about whether all detainees are hardened terrorists
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By Jamie McIntyre
CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent
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In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. Jamie McIntyre, CNN senior pentagon correspondent, was in the courtroom at the trial of Salim Hamdan by a military tribunal.

In an artist's rendering, Hamdan, left, sits with a member of his defense team during a June 2007 pretrial hearing.

CNN's Jamie McIntyre reports from Camp Justice in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (CNN) -- It's not often you get to be an eyewitness to history, especially with a front row seat. But I definitely had the feeling that a bit of legal history was made in the small, windowless courtroom down in Guantanamo Bay, even as both sides argued what it meant.

Salim Hamdan, the first detainee from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face a tribunal, could be seen smiling in court, just like he is in one of the few photographs we've seen of him. He came across as genial and polite in his court appearances. To the judge and jury he was unfailingly polite.

Testimony gave a glimpse of the character of the man known to most by the job he held when he was captured, Osama bin Laden's driver. One character witness, a psychologist, spoke of how he was more cooperative when they brought him cheesecake.

Before he was sentenced to 5½ years on a single count of aiding a terrorist, Hamdan addressed the court, speaking directly to the jury at times, though a translator. He thanked the anonymous military jurors who some news accounts portrayed as his enemies, and he apologized for the acts of his former boss, Osama bin Laden.

"It was big shock for me when someone who had treated you with respect and regard, and then you realize what they were up to," said Hamdan, referring to bin Laden.

Prosecutors portrayed Hamdan's statement as phony remorse and continued to paint Hamdan as "a career al Qaeda warrior" and a member of bin Laden's inner circle who was therefore complicit in terrorists attacks, including September 11, 2001.

But the jury of five men and one woman, all military officers picked by the Pentagon, sent a clear message by handing down the sentence of just 66 months. They knew that 61 months would be subtracted for time served.

The jury bought the defense argument that Hamdan was a little fish, a driver, a go-fer, who has already paid for his crimes since his capture in Afghanistan in November 2001 and should be released in a few months.

What amounts to a five-month sentence raises questions about whether the government's description of prisoners at Guantanamo as hardened terrorists should be taken at face value.

Should Hamdan have been charged with war crimes in the first place? In the trial, the defense compared Hamdan to the driver for Adolf Hitler. But Hitler's driver was not charged with anything after World War II.

Hamdan's defense team, a mix of military and civilian lawyers, was ecstatic about the sentence. But the fate of their client remains uncertain. The United States could continue to call him an "enemy combatant" and hold him indefinitely.

The attorneys -- and even the judge, who himself is a Navy captain -- appeared to have developed some real affection for the 40-year old father of two girls.

But ask the attorneys how they feel about defending someone who may have helped kill Americans and they tell you they are not defending a terrorist. They believe they are defending the rule of law and America's core values.

All About Guantanamo BayOsama bin LadenAl QaedaSalim Ahmed Hamdan

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