French fries said to have calmed Hamdan

By Randall Mikkelsen

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Hot McDonald's french fries and a call home encouraged Salim Hamdan to cooperate under interrogation but Osama bin Laden's driver did not like cold fries and isolation upset him, witnesses said at his Guantanamo war crimes trial on Friday.

"Mr. Hamdan commented that he liked McDonald's fries and we brought fries in," FBI special agent George Crouch told Hamdan's terrorism war crimes trial before a U.S. military commission. "Mr. Hamdan even appreciated that McDonald's fries are not good cold."

Hamdan grew upset and uncooperative when he put in solitary confinement amid a series of interrogations, prompting a heated complaint by Crouch to military guards.

Another time, Hamdan's mood lifted when he was allowed to call and tell his wife that he was alive seven months after his capture in November 2001.

"Mr. Hamdan cried quite a bit," Crouch said. "He was very grateful for the opportunity to speak to his wife. A burden had been lifted from him. At least his wife knew he was alive."

Hamdan was one of several drivers for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Prosecutors say he was captured in Afghanistan at the wheel of a car with two surface-to-air missiles.

He is facing charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two.

Prosecutors are relying largely on Hamdan's statements during interrogations in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay during more than six years of captivity in an attempt to show he was an active, important supporter of bin Laden and al Qaeda.