By Jim Loney at Guantanamo Bay | July 23, 2008
OSAMA bin Laden's driver was so close to al-Qaeda's inner circle he knew the target of the fourth hijacked jetliner in the September 11 attacks, a war crimes trial has been told.
Salim Hamdan's lawyer says the Yemeni, who was held for nearly seven years before his trial, was simply a paid employee of the fugitive al-Qaeda leader, a driver in the motor pool who never joined the militant group or plotted attacks on America.
But prosecutor Timothy Stone told the six-member jury of US military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence at the trial at Guantanamo Bay that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the US because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew," Mr Stone said.
Mr Hamdan, a father of two with little education, entered a not guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism on Monday, the opening day of the first US war crimes trial since World War II.
He could face life in prison if convicted.
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. US officials have never stated it was shot down although rumours saying that abound to this day.
Prosecutors have said Hamdan had direct access to al-Qaeda's leaders. Mr Stone told the jury Hamdan earned the trust of bin Laden during a trial period from 1996 to 1998 and helped him flee after attacks on US embassies in east Africa in 1998 and the September 11 attacks.
"He served as bodyguard, driver, transported and delivered weapons, ammunition and supplies to al-Qaeda," Mr Stone said.
Hamdan is being tried in a hilltop courthouse at the US navy base in Guantanamo Bay, which has been a lightning rod for criticism of the US since early 2002, when it began housing a prison camp to hold alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from the battlefields of Afghanistan.
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