Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden speaks in a video released on a web site September 7, 2007.((Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)
Osama bin Laden's former driver has heard the al-Qaida leader express satisfaction with the death toll of the September 11, 2001, attacks at the US which was more than his expectation, according to a news report on Wednesday.
Citing a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, theWashington Postreport said that the arrested driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, told US interrogators at the Guantanamo detention center bin Laden was "happy about the results" of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000, while his expectation on the death toll was "only" 1,000 to 1,500.
The agent, Ali Soufan, also told Hamdan's military trial that during an interrogation in 2002, the driver said he had directly witnessed a meeting on September 11, 2001, in Kabul, Afghanistan, between bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, self-claimed mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when the al-Qaida leader praised the 19 suicide hijackers-to-be for "their courage".
Defendant Salim Hamdan attends 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 this photograph of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the US Military, July 22, 2008. ((Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Soufan testified to support prosecutors' depiction of Hamdan as a loyal member of the terrorist group who has helped to transport weapons, while the defense lawyers claimed he was only an employee without direct involvement in any terrorist acts, according to the report.
Hamdan was the first of the charged terrorist suspects who was tried before the special "war crime court" set by a US military trial at the Guantanamo base. He was charged with "conspiracy" and "material support for terrorism", and faced life imprisonment if convicted.
The report said that he walked out of the courtroom on Wednesday when a video of his interrogation by US authorities was played.
"Mr (Salim) Hamdan does not want to watch the video," one of his lawyers told the military officer presiding over the terrorism trial.
In the video footages shot two days after his capture in Afghanistan in November, 2001, Hamdan was shown with a thick beard and cuffed hands, kneeling on the floor and struggling to answer questions by interrogators.
In a preliminary hearing, Hamdan claimed that he was tortured and humiliation during detention and interrogation.
(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2008)
