Hamdan is called more than driver

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA —  In the weeks after Sept. 11, 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 Thursday.

Prosecutors seeking to prove that the Yemeni native should be considered an unlawful enemy combatant said that Hamdan had two surface-to-air missiles in his car when he was captured in southern Afghanistan in November 2001.

If he is designated an unlawful enemy combatant, Hamdan would be subject to a military commission trial on charges of conspiracy and material support to terrorism.

Hamdan’s lawyers have argued that he was simply a $200-a-month employee with little interest in Al Qaeda’s ideology and that he should be treated as a prisoner of war.

After two days of marathon sessions, Navy Capt. 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 Hamdan’s status.

Robert McFadden, the special agent in charge of the Pentagon’s counterintelligence program, testified Thursday that Hamdan confessed in May 2003 to making weapons pickups and deliveries for Bin Laden. Hamdan also said he had pledged allegiance to Bin Laden -- on condition that Al Qaeda remained focused on fighting for liberation of the Arabian peninsula and against “Jews and crusaders,” not other Muslims -- McFadden testified.

Asked by prosecutor John Murphy how Hamdan regarded Bin Laden’s proclaimed holy war against the United States, McFadden said Hamdan showed “uncontrollable enthusiasm.”

Allred heard conflicting accounts Thursday from an Army major and a Moroccan terrorism suspect at Guantanamo Bay about the origin of the missiles.

Maj. Henry Smith -- who was in charge of 15 U.S. soldiers and more than 600 local anti-Taliban fighters in the early days of the battle for Kandahar -- testified he had seen two SA-7 surface-to-air missiles in a silver hatchback he was told had been driven by 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 told U.S. 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 along the road between Kandahar and the Pakistani city of Quetta just minutes before Hamdan was captured.

Boujaadia opened his arms in greeting to Hamdan as he was led into the courtroom. But he refused to answer questions posed by Hamdan’s attorney, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, about the missiles. When asked what he had seen in the van’s cargo hold, Boujaadia replied, “A box of dates.”

carol.williams@latimes.com