CUBA:In the weeks after the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, Salim Ahmed Hamdan - Osama bin Laden's driver - helped the al-Qaeda leader evade capture and applauded his quest to destroy the United States, witnesses told a military panel here on Thursday.
Prosecutors seeking to prove that the Yemeni native should be considered an unlawful enemy combatant also said that Mr Hamdan had two surface-to-air missiles in his car when he was captured in southern Afghanistan in November 2001. The unlawful enemy combatant status would make him subject to military commission trial on charges of conspiracy and material support to terrorism.
Mr Hamdan's lawyers have argued that he simply was a $200-a-month employee with little interest in al-Qaeda's ideology.
After two days of marathon sessions, navy captain Keith J Allred said he would take a sheaf of legal motions and challenges under advisement. It was unclear when the commission judge would rule on Mr Hamdan's status.
During Thursday's testimony, the special agent in charge of the Pentagon's counterintelligence programme said Mr Hamdan had confessed in May 2003 to making numerous weapons pickups and deliveries for bin Laden.
Robert McFadden also said that Mr Hamdan told him he had pledged allegiance to bin Laden - on condition that al-Qaeda remained focused on fighting for the liberation of the Arabian peninsula and against "Jews and crusaders", not other Muslims.
Asked by prosecutor John Murphy how Mr Hamdan regarded bin Laden's proclaimed holy war against the United States, Mr McFadden said Mr Hamdan showed "uncontrollable enthusiasm". Capt Allred also heard conflicting accounts on Thursday from an army major and a Moroccan terror suspect being held at Guantánamo Bay about the origin of the missiles.
Maj Henry "Hank" Smith, who was in charge of 15 US soldiers and more than 600 local anti-Taliban fighters in the early days of the battle for Kandahar, told Capt Allred that he had seen two SA-7 surface-to-air missiles in a silver hatchback he was told had been driven by Mr Hamdan.
A photograph introduced into evidence by the prosecution, however, showed the two missiles on the tailgate of a blue pickup truck. There was no explanation about the discrepancy.
The Moroccan detainee, Said Boujaadia, last year had told US military officials that the missiles had been in the back of a white van driven by two Egyptian militants who had picked him up while hitchhiking. The van had been stopped at a blockade between Kandahar and the Pakistani city of Quetta just minutes before Mr Hamdan was captured.
Mr Boujaadia smiled and opened his arms in greeting to Mr Hamdan as he was led into the courtroom on Thursday. But he refused to answer questions posed by Mr Hamdan's lead attorney, retired navy lieutenant commodore Charles Swift, about the origin of the missiles.