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Bin Laden's Aide Called 'Primitive'

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The Washington Post

Published: August 2, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Osama bin Laden's former driver was a "primitive" chauffer and mechanic who "was not fit to plan or execute" terrorist attacks, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks told jurors in writing Friday at the driver's military trial.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 architect, wrote that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was a low-level support staffer who never joined al-Qaida and did not share bin Laden's ideology.

Hamdan is on trial in the first U.S. military commission since World War II. His lawyers rested their case Friday, and closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.

"He did not play any role. He was not a soldier, he was a driver," Mohammed said in answers to written questions from Hamdan's lawyers that were relayed to the six military jurors who will render a verdict. "His nature was more primitive Bedouin person and far from civilization. He was not fit to plan or execute."

The testimony provided another tantalizing glimpse inside the mind of Mohammed, who has been charged in the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history and has been a figure of intrigue since his arrest in 2003.

He sketched out a vision of al-Qaida as a group whose members also have "wives and children and schools" and said that anyone who thinks a mere driver would be involved in attacks "is a fool."

What effect his written testimony will have on the Hamdan jury is uncertain.

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