WASHINGTON, June 29: Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a US ‘war on terror’ detainee whose lawsuit struck a major blow against President George Bush’s administration, is a Yemeni alleged to have served as a driver and bodyguard to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Born in Hadramout, Yemen, around 1970, Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan in Nov 2001 after five years of allegedly close service to Osama.

Hamdan was transferred in 2002 to the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and ordered tried by a military tribunal set up for ‘war on terror’ detainees.

The indictment against Hamdan alleges that he met Osama in the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1996 and ‘ultimately became a bodyguard and personal driver’ for the Al-Qaeda leader.

“On divers occasions between 1996 and November of 2001, Hamdan drove or accompanied Osama bin Laden to various Al Qaeda-sponsored training camps, press conferences or lectures,” the indictment said.

It alleges that Hamdan received training in the use of rifles, handguns and machine guns in an Al Qaeda camp.

According to author Jonathan Mahler, who is writing a book about the Hamdan case, Hamdan, an orphan, was recruited for jihad in 1996, when he was earning a modest living as a taxi driver in Sanaa.

Although not particularly religious, Hamdan decided to travel with 35 other Muslims to Tajikistan, where militants were battling the Russian-backed government, Mr Mahler wrote in the New York Times.

The would-be militants reached Afghanistan but were turned back at the border with Tajikistan after a six-month journey through the mountains.

Hamdan and the others turned for help to Osama, who had recently taken up residence in Afghanistan after being expelled from Sudan.

In late Nov 2001, Hamdan was captured by Afghan warlords.

He was turned over to US forces for a 5,000-dollar bounty and spent the next six months in US prison camps in Bagram and Kandahar, according to Mahler.

Hamdan was flown to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in May 2002, where he has been confined to a small cell while awaiting trial.—AFP