By Jim Loney

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, July 22 (Reuters) - Salim Hamdan was Osama bin Laden's personal protector as well as his driver and joined an al Qaeda conspiracy to wage war on the United States, a prosecutor said on Tuesday at the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two.

The Yemeni, who was held for nearly seven years before his trial, was simply a paid employee of the fugitive al Qaeda leader, a driver in the motor pool who never joined the militant group and never plotted attacks on America, Hamdan's lawyer told the court in his opening statement.

Hamdan entered a formal not guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism on Monday, the opening day of the first Guantanamo war crimes trial. He could face life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutor Timothy Stone, a Navy lieutenant commander, told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers that Hamdan earned the trust of bin Laden during a trial period from 1996 to 1998 and helped him flee after attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"He served as bodyguard, driver, transported and delivered weapons, ammunition and supplies to al Qaeda," Stone said in his opening argument.

Stone said Hamdan was at bin Laden's side, protecting him, as he attended news conferences, training camps and lectures in which he spread his message and recruited terrorists.

"You will not see evidence from the government that the accused ever fired a shot," he said. "But what you will see is testimony regarding the accused's role in al Qaeda, how he came to be a member of al Qaeda."

Hamdan was being tried in a hilltop courthouse at the U.S. navy base in Guantanamo Bay, which has been a lightning rod for criticism of the United States since early 2002, when it began housing a prison camp to hold alleged Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from the battlefields of Afghanistan.

CONTROVERSY OVER DETENTION

The war crimes tribunal system has been heavily criticized by human and legal rights groups. Defense lawyers, some of them U.S. military officers, have called the legal system unfair.

Detainees have been held for years without charges and the United States says they can be held until "the end of hostilities." Washington has declared them unlawful enemy combatants not entitled to the rights afforded prisoners of war under international law.

Hamdan was was captured in Afghanistan and then held at Guantanamo for six years. Defense lawyer Harry Schneider described him as a poor Yemeni father of two young children who lost his parents at a young age and lived on the streets, where he developed a knack for fixing cars.

"The evidence is that he worked for wages. He didn't wage attacks on America," he said. "He had a job because he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America."

Hamdan got his pay directly from bin Laden, not from any terrorist organization, Schneider said.

"There will be no evidence that Mr. Hamdan espoused or believed or embraced any form of what you will hear about, radical Islam beliefs, extremist Muslim beliefs," he said.

Schneider told the jurors the government would call none of al Qaeda's leaders as witnesses to testify about Hamdan's role in the organization. But he said the defense would call one who would say Hamdan "was not fit to plan or execute. He was fit to change tires and oil filters and clean cars."

The defense plans to question at least two accused Sept. 11 planners, including alleged mastermind and al Qaeda number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also held at Guantanamo.

The first witness to take the stand at the war crimes trial was Maj. Henry Smith, who had 16 U.S. soldiers and up to 800 Afghans in his command after the invasion of Afghanistan.

Both the prosecution and defense questioned Smith about whether Hamdan had surface-to-air missiles in his car when he was captured at a checkpoint near Takhteh Pol in late November 2001.

Smith said several times he believed the missiles were in Hamdan's light-colored hatchback. "I believe that was the car that the missiles were in," he said.

Prosecutor Stone displayed a missile launcher with peeling paint to jurors. Smith said he had ordered the missiles destroyed in Afghanistan. (Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

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