Guantanamo detainee heard Bin Laden praise Sept.11 hijackers

The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to face a military trial on terrorism charges was so close to Osama bin Laden that he was at a meeting of top al-Qaeda aides the day of the Sept. 11 attacks, a former FBI agent testified Friday.

Defendant Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who has admitted being a driver and bodyguard to the al-Qaeda leader, heard bin Laden praise the attacks and the hijackers at the meeting in Kabul, said Ali Soufan, who left the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2005.

Bin Laden even gave Hamdan marriage advice, telling him to wed a woman from a "pious religious family," and held a feast for him after his marriage, Soufan said, recounting his own interrogations of the prisoner at Guantanamo.

"It shows a close relationship and the affinity that Mr. Bin Laden has for him," said Soufan, addressing the Pentagon-selected jury of U.S. military officers,.

Hamdan, a citizen of Yemen, has been held at Guantanamo since May 2002. He is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism and faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The defence has portrayed Hamdan as a bit player, a driver with a fourth-grade education who needed his salary of about $200 a month to feed his family.

Prosecutors claim he was close enough to the inner circle that he attended the meeting in Kabul on the day of the attacks. Also in attendance, Soufan said, were top lieutenants Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is still at large, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is imprisoned at Guantanamo and is also to face his own military commission trial at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Soufan, who is regarded as a terrorism expert, said Hamdan helped move bin Laden and one of his sons, Uthman, to a safer location days before Sept. 11, 2001.

After the attacks, Hamdan continued to help bin Laden despite hearing him boast about the number of people killed, he said.

"He heard bin Laden saying that he didn't expect the operation to be that successful," Soufan said. "He [Bin Laden] only thought 1,000 or 1,500 people would perish, so he was happy about the results."

Nearly 3,000 people died in Sept.11, 2001 attacks.

Prosecutors showed Soufan a photo of bin Laden standing next to an armed Hamdan.

"Who gets to be that close to Osama bin Laden," prosecutor John Murphy asked the witness.

"People he trusts with his life, it appears," Soufan said.