Bin Laden 'bodyguard' charged

The US filed charges of conspiracy and providing support for terrorism today against a Guantanamo detainee accused of working as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan is the third Guantanamo detainee to be charged under a new set of rules signed last year by President George Bush after the Supreme Court rejected the previous system.

It was Hamdan’s legal challenge that forced the Bush administration and Congress to draft the new rules for the military trials at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in eastern Cuba.