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9/11 plotter says: 'You don't understand al Qaeda.'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-02 15:56

GUANTANAMO BAY  - The accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks told a US war crimes court at Guantanamo on Friday that Osama bin Laden's driver had no role in al Qaeda attacks and was unfit to carry them out.

A photograph of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the U.S. military, shows defendant Salim Hamdan (L) sitting with his defense team during testimony on day three of his trial inside the war crimes courthouse at Camp Justice, the legal complex of the US Military Commissions, at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, in Cuba, July 23, 2008. [Agencies]

Anyone who thought all bin Laden's associates were involved in his plots "is a fool and does not understand al Qaeda," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in written comments submitted as defense evidence in the trial of Yemeni prisoner Salim Hamdan.

The jury of six military officers is scheduled to begin deliberating their verdict after the lawyers give closing arguments on Monday in the first US war crimes tribunal since World War Two.

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Hamdan acknowledges he drove for bin Laden in Afghanistan for US$200 a month but denies joining al Qaeda or participating in its attacks. He faces life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.

The Bush administration says it can still hold him as an "unlawful enemy combatant," even if he is acquitted of the charges, until the "end of hostilities" in the war against terrorism declared by US President George W. Bush.

Mohammed, the highest-ranking al Qaeda figure in US custody, is also imprisoned at Guantanamo awaiting trial and potential execution on charges of plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Hamdan's lawyers asked him written questions about Hamdan's qualifications and his work with bin Laden.

"He was not a soldier, he was a driver," Mohammed said according to a redacted English translation of his Arabic.

He described Hamdan, who has a fourth-grade education, as a "more primitive (Bedouin) person" who did not share bin Laden's ideology but wanted his money and was "only searching for pleasure and money in this life."

"He was not fit to plan or execute. But he is fit to change trucks' tires, change oil filters, wash and clean cars and fasten cargo in pick up trucks," said Mohammed, who called himself the military official responsible for overseeing al Qaeda cells abroad and "the executive director of 9/11."

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