Prosecutors Link Bin Laden Driver to September 11 Attacks
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A former driver for Osama bin Laden knew the target of the fourth hijacked plane on September 11, 2001, 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 an American war-crimes trial since World War II, heard Mr. bin Laden say the plane was heading for “the dome,” an apparent reference to the American Capitol, Navy Lieutenant Commander Timothy Stone said.
The plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers overcame the hijackers.
“Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew,” Commander Stone told the jury of six U.S. military officers in his opening statement.
Mr. 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 Mr. 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,” One of Mr. Hamdan’s civilian defense attorneys, Harry Schneider, 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 Mr. bin Laden’s personal driver, he helped the Al Qaeda leader evade American retribution after the September 11 attacks and transport weapons for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
To support that claim, prosecutors called as their first witness an American special forces soldier who described finding two surface-to-air missiles in the car Mr. 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 Mr. 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,” Commander 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 that Mr. Hamdan reported for some duties to the head of a security unit equivalent to the American Secret Service.
“The people who are around bin Laden have to be people who are looked into and trusted,” he said. “They can’t be bought, they are true believers in the cause.”
Mr. Soufan, a native Arabic speaker, is expected to testify today about a series of interrogations he conducted with Mr. Hamdan in Guantanamo in 2002.
Mr. Hamdan faces a maximum life sentence if convicted. The trial is expected to take three to four weeks. America says it plans to prosecute about 80 prisoners at Guantanamo.