Bin Laden driver freed from jail

Hamdan was sentenced to 66 months in jail by a US military commission

The former driver of Osama Bin Laden has been freed from jail in Yemen, two months after being sent there from the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Salim Hamdan was the first Guantanamo detainee to be sentenced by a US military commission when he was given a 66-month jail term last August.

He was found guilty of providing material support to terrorism.

He has been freed because he had already spent seven years in US custody after being detained in Afghanistan.

Hamdan, who is about 40, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001.

He admitted working for Bin Laden in Afghanistan from 1997 to 2001 for $200 (£122) a month, but he said he worked for wages, not to wage war on the US.

The tribunal rejected charges that Hamdan conspired with others to carry out al-Qaeda attacks, including those on 11 September 2001 in the US.

Some 255 inmates are still being held at Guantanamo, including about 60 people who are no longer considered a threat by the US authorities and have been cleared for release.

Dozens of other inmates are due to be tried at Guantanamo, including men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks.

US President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to shut the camp, which is on a US base in Cuba, once he takes office.