WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden's former driver can use testimony by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and some other detained Al Qaeda operatives in his upcoming military trial at Guantanamo Bay because it might help exonerate him, a military judge said Monday.
Defense lawyers said at a hearing that they wanted to call Mohammed and seven other prospective witnesses in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the first detainee at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to be scheduled for trial. If the proceedings begin next week as planned, it will be the first time the U.S. has held a military tribunal since World War II.
At a pretrial hearing for Hamdan at the naval base Monday, prosecutors said Mohammed and four other men accused of being his co-conspirators in the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington should not be allowed to testify because they might reveal some of the U.S. government's most closely held secrets, including sources of information about Al Qaeda and ways in which terrorism suspects are interrogated.
"The detainees that they want access to hold in their heads some of the most serious national security and intelligence sources and methods that the United States has," Justice Department prosecutor Clayton Trivett said.
But Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, the military judge hearing the case, said that Mohammed and the other men also appeared to have knowledge of events that could favor Hamdan, who has insisted for years that he was merely a driver for Bin Laden who needed the work and never engaged in, or knew about, terrorist activity.
Allred told the prosecutors in the Spartan courtroom that he saw the evidence brought forward by the defense lawyers as being "relevant and necessary and exculpatory."
"I just believe the defendant cannot have a fair trial without this evidence," Allred said.
Allred told both sides to work out some sort of compromise, which could include having the government submit written or videotaped testimony from Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. A similar technique allowed Mohammed's testimony to be used in the federal criminal trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2003.
Hamdan is charged with transporting weapons for Al Qaeda and helping Bin Laden escape after the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and charged by the military in 2004. His case has repeatedly been delayed and in 2006 led to a Supreme Court decision that forced the Bush administration to redo its military commissions system and get congressional approval for it.
