UMD professor provides defense in terrorist trial By Steve <javascript:NewWindow(740,530,'/apps/pbcs.dll/personalia?ID=NB120',0)> Urbon Standard-Times senior correspondent July 31, 2008 6:00 AM http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080731/NEWS/8073 10386/1018/OPINION DARTMOUTH - A UMass Dartmouth history professor spent five hours on an electronic witness stand Wednesday testifying for the defense in the trial of Salim Hamdan, once the driver for Osama bin Laden.
Dr. Brian Glyn Williams repeated what he said in December at a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo Bay: that Mr. Hamdan, with a fourth-grade education, "doesn't fit the profile of the al-Qaida elite," college-educated and trained in specialized paramilitary camps. "I don't see Salim Hamdan by any stretch of the imagination fitting this profile,'' said Dr. Williams, in live videoconferencing testimony via satellite from the U.S. air base at Incirlik, Turkey. Mr. Hamdan is accused of conspiring with al-Qaida and providing material support for its terrorist activities. Dr. Williams, on leave from UMass for some field research in the Middle East, was brought in as an expert witness because of his years of travel to the war-torn region, particularly Afghanistan, where he has interviewed warlords, as well as accused Taliban prisoners, and studied the hierarchy of the fighters in the region. Mr. Hamdan, 37, who was paid $200 a month as bin Laden's driver, is being tried in the first war crimes tribunal since World War II as a trusted bin Laden aide. The trial itself is being held at Guantanamo Bay. Under interrogation, federal agents testified, Mr. Hamdan boasted of his skill at maneuvering in motorcades to evade retaliation by the United States. They said he told of overhearing backseat conversations about the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and occasionally served as a bodyguard and weapons courier. But Dr. Williams held to his view that Mr. Hamdan fails to fit the profile of someone in any al-Qaida inner circle. "The terrorists, they are the elite. I call them the Harvard of the terrorist movement," he said, adding they are "multilingual, adept at infiltration, very, very talented operatives,'' multilingual experts with advanced degrees who can blend into the West, according to the Miami Herald, which monitored the testimony. "They weren't run-of-the-mill riff-raff, the sort of cannon fodder that al-Qaida would use in military operations against the Northern Alliance,'' he said. By contrast, he testified, Mr. Hamdan was a poor man who needed some money to support himself and get married, who had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Dr. Williams said he interviewed many fighters who were sent to weapons training camps in Afghanistan but denounced the 9/11 attacks and despised al-Qaida. He said bin Laden's plans were kept secret and not shared with his many employees on his farms, construction companies and other enterprises. "Many of these people were hired, given salaries and knew nothing about the inner workings of al-Qaida," Dr. Williams said. Under questioning by the prosecutor, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone, he agreed that bin Laden was a terrorist. 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