Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemenite who was a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden, wasn’t going anywhere even if he was acquitted in the first military commission trial conducted by the U.S. since the end of World War II. That is not how justice works under the Bush administration. But that won’t matter following his conviction today of the lesser of two sets of charges against him by a panel of six military officers at Guantánamo Bay.

The conviction is a qualified victory for the administration, which despite its post-9/11 chest-pounding rhetoric, has suffered innumerable self-inflicted setbacks over the past seven years to bring Hamdan and others to trial at the naval base.

Hamdan was acquitted of the two more serious set of charges of conspiracy but convicted of five of eight charges of providing material support for terrorism after a two-week trial that included secret evidence and testimony in a closed courtroom.

Hamdan, who is about 40, was impassive as the verdict was read out but then appeared to break down in tears. He will likely be sentenced to a life term at a separate proceeding later today. His lawyers have said they will appeal, which probably will mean an eventual return to the Supreme Court where a majority of justices ruled in his favor in the landmark Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case in 2006.

The military commission system has been widely-criticized because it does not meet the fundamental standards of justice delineated in the U.S. Constitution.

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