One of the detainees at Guantanamo worked as a driver on a farm owned by Osama bin Laden. He has been appointed a military lawyer who says the facts will be on his side during an anticipated military tribunal tiral.

Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan, 34, is now held in isolation at the terrorism prison in Cuba in segregated accommodations for prisoners facing possible military tribunals, said his lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift. ''He fully admits that he was an employee of Osama bin Laden'' from 1997 until the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in 2001. ``But he adamantly denies that he was ever a member of al Qaeda or engaged in any terrorist attack. He worked for Osama bin Laden solely for the purpose of supporting himself and his family.''

....Starting in 1997, Hamdan worked for bin Laden on his farm in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, Swift said, and drove a Toyota pickup truck. He sometimes ferried farm workers to the fields and sometimes transported around Afghanistan the al Qaeda mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Hamdan first went to Afghanistan in 1996, the lawyer said, intending to travel to Tajikistan to join Muslims there fighting former Soviet communists. He never made the trip but found the job with bin Laden that paid $200 a month, a huge sum for a poor Yemeni in impoverished Afghanistan.

''In respect to the prospect of a trial by military commission, he denies that he's a terrorist, al Qaeda or a combatant in the international conflict in Afghanistan. He is a civilian worker who was caught up in the war,'' Swift said.

At the time of his capture, he was alone and driving a borrowed car in a mountainous portion of eastern Afghanistan near Pakistan. He had just evacuated his pregnant wife and daughter to the safety of Pakistan, the lawyer said, and was returning the car.

Hamdan has a fourth grade education. Swift also described the conditions of his client's confinement:

He has been held in solitary confinement, segregated from the other Camp Delta prisoners in a windowless air-conditioned cell and permitted exercise only at night, ``so he never sees the sun.'' He suffers from arthritis, Swift said, which is aggravated by the prison's air conditioning. ''He gets cold, ironic in Cuba,'' he said.

Gee, we feel a lot safer knowing the Pentagon is going after the big guys. Hamdan sounds like a real threat.