US seeks to link prisoner to Sept. 11 attacks

Defense portrays low-level role in Guantanamo trial

Salim Hamdan, the first prisoner to face a US war crimes trial since World War II, is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. (AP Photo)

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A former driver for Osama bin Laden knew the target of the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11, a prosecutor said yesterday as he sought to undercut defense arguments that the Guantanamo prisoner was a low-level employee of the terrorist leader.

Salim Hamdan, the first prisoner to face a US war crimes trial since World War II, heard bin Laden say the plane was heading for "the dome," an apparent reference to the US Capitol, said Navy Lieutenant Commander Timothy Stone.

The plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers overcame the hijackers.

"Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew," Stone told the jury of six US military officers in his opening statement.

Hamdan is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. The defense says the prisoner, a Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, was merely a driver for bin Laden and had no significant role in Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks.

"The evidence is that he worked for wages, he didn't wage attacks on America," Harry Schneider, one of Hamdan's civilian defense attorneys, told the jury. "He had a job because he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America."

But prosecutors say that as bin Laden's personal driver, he helped the Al Qaeda leader evade US retribution after the Sept. 11 attacks and transport weapons for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

To support that claim, prosecutors called as their first witness a US special forces soldier who described finding two surface-to-air missiles in the car Hamdan was driving when Afghan forces captured him in November 2001.

A second American military officer, identified only as "Sgt. Maj. A.," testified that soldiers also found in Hamdan's car an Al Qaeda weapons manual and a permit with an Arabic greeting that the Taliban issued to Al Qaeda members to carry weapons in Afghanistan.

"You will not see evidence from the government that the accused ever fired a shot," Stone said. "But what you will see is testimony regarding the accused's role in Al Qaeda, how he became a member of Al Qaeda, and how he helped, facilitated, and provided material support for that organization."

An FBI agent who has researched the command structure of Al Qaeda, Ali Soufan, testified Hamdan reported for some duties to the head of a security unit equivalent to the Secret Service.