George Clooney. Photo / Supplied
George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver.
Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantanamo Bay who
last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al Qaeda leader.
The book, The Challenge, is by Jonathan Mahler and tells the tale of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a United States Navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success.
Last week Yemen-born Hamdan, who has already spent seven years in US custody, got a surprisingly light sentence of just 5 1/2 years for being bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan.
Prosecutors had billed the case as a key plank in the so-called War on Terror, designed to show that terrorists could be dealt with by Guantanamo. They said Hamdan was a member of bin Laden's inner circle who knew of his terrorist plans.
Defence lawyers portrayed him as a simple man who had taken a high-paying job to feed his family. A military jury seemed to agree with that assessment, clearing him of terrorist conspiracy charges, but finding him guilty of providing support to a terrorist.
The case became a cause celebre on both sides of America's political divide. Supporters saw it as a chance to show Guantanamo was effectively and fairly dealing with terrorists.
Critics saw it as an abusive system using low-level prisoners as scapegoats.
Clooney is believed to be interested in playing the role of lawyer Swift and the case certainly has all the drama and tension of any fictional legal thriller.
Aside from the terrorism and exotic locations, The Challenge describes Swift's battle as a classic case of a crusading "little guy" winning against the odds.
When he was first assigned to Hamdan's case Swift was a relatively inexperienced, young military lawyer.
But he led a team that took Hamdan's case to the Supreme Court and won.
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