Bin Laden's driver "shocked" by USS Cole attack

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By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden’s driver said on Thursday he was stunned to learn his boss was behind the bombing of the warship USS Cole but went back to work for him because he could not find another job that paid enough to support his family.

"I couldn’t beg," Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan told the U.S. war crimes court jury that will sentence him on a conviction of providing material support for terrorism. "I had to work."

The jury of six U.S. military officers can sentence him to life in prison, no further punishment or something in between.

Hamdan has maintained he never joined al Qaeda or knew in advance of its plots but joined bin Laden’s motor pool in Afghanistan for the $200 monthly salary.

He described it as a respectful, professional relationship and said he initially believed Yemeni news reports that Israeli secret agents were the ones who sent a boat full of explosives into the Cole at the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000. The attack blew a hole in the ship and killed 17 U.S. sailors.

When he learned a month later that the al Qaeda leader was behind the attack, "It was a big shock for me," Hamdan said.

"The way I look to bin Laden changed a lot," he said.

Nonetheless, he said, he continued working for bin Laden and .....continued below

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The jurors, whose names are secret, convicted Hamdan on Wednesday on charges of providing material support for terrorism by working as a driver and occasional armed bodyguard and weapons courier for bin Laden in Afghanistan from 1996 to November 2001.

They acquitted him on more serious charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to wage murderous attacks, after hearing two weeks of evidence in the first U.S. war crimes trial since the World War Two era.

(Editing by Michael Connor and David Wiessler)