Arguments in trial offer a rare glimpse of life in al-Qaida
Prosecutors accuse man of aiding attacks.
Arguments in trial offer a rare glimpse of life in al-Qaida
Prosecutors say bin Laden's driver was central to some attacks.

By McClatchy-Tribune New Service

Published: July 23, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The U.S. government opened its first war crimes prosecution Tuesday with a narrative of Osama bin Laden's driver overhearing his boss offer an eerie post-mortem in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:

”If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane, it would've hit the dome,” declared Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone.

And with his first words to a military jury, the Pentagon prosecutor conjured up a conversation from inside al-Qaida, revealed by the accused, driver Salim Hamdan.

Bin Laden told his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahari, that U.S. forces — not heroic passengers — brought down United Airlines Flight 93, which was headed to the U.S. Capitol.

Hamdan, 37, of Yemen, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism for allegedly serving as the al-Qaida godfather's driver, sometime bodyguard and weapons courier.

Prosecutors put him at the heart of the conspiracy.

Defense attorneys cast him as a nobody, an orphan who left Yemen and became bin Laden's $200-a-month driver because "he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America.”

The spectator's gallery was nearly half-empty as the two sides addressed a military jury of six U.S. colonels and lieutenant colonels, whose names are withheld by order of the judge.

Opening arguments lasted about two hours and the Pentagon called its first witness, Army Maj. Hank Smith, to describe taking custody of Hamdan in November 2001, soon after his capture at a checkpoint near Taktapol, Afghanistan.

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