GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Osama bin Laden's driver mournfully declared a boycott of his war-on-terrorism trial Tuesday, despite a plea from his military judge that he press on because he had already beaten President Bush once, at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The development threw the proceedings into turmoil as the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, ordered an overnight recess to let the driver's lawyers consult.

If the boycott holds, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 36, becomes the fourth of five detainees currently charged at military commissions who are refusing to attend the proceedings.

Moreover, Hamdan is slated to be the first Guantánamo detainee to go to full-blown trial before a commission of U.S. military officers -- in late May.

''I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry,'' said the wiry Yemeni father of two, who has a fourth-grade education. ``I will not be continuing with the trial.''

The scene was extraordinary.

Hamdan, accused of being an al Qaeda co-conspirator and facing a potential life sentence if convicted, offered none of the anti-American rhetoric of earlier war crimes court boycotters.

And until this week he had consistently turned up at his hearings -- eager to listen, wearing a pristine white traditional Yemeni robe and saying he wanted to prove his innocence.

Tuesday afternoon he appeared in a rumpled tan prison camp uniform and interrupted legal arguments preparing for his trial.

He told the military judge in a 40-minute exchange that he wanted to answer charges before an ordinary U.S. civilian court, not the evolving war courts.

Allred, the judge, quietly and repeatedly urged Hamdan not to give up on military commission justice. ''I appreciate your frustration,'' he told Hamdan, who was been in U.S. custody since his November 2001 capture in Afghanistan.

But he reminded the captive that he had a good record when he worked with his American attorneys, who have provided free services.

In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court declared an earlier effort to stage the trials unconstitutional, because the White House did not have explicit congressional approval to create the commissions.

The driver's lawyers engineered the victory in Hamdan v. Bush.

''Mr. Hamdan I think you should have great faith in American law because you have already been to the Supreme Court of the United States,'' the judge said.

Hamdan shot back a grin, and a shrug. Then the two men shared a laugh.

''OK, they didn't take you,'' Allred said. ``You waited here. . . And the Supreme Court of the United States said to the president of the United States, `You cannot do that to Mr. Hamdan.'

``You are the winner. Your name is printed in the law books. You beat the United States with these attorneys who are here today.''

Hamdan is back before a new system, created by Congress to replace the war-on-terror trials that the justices struck down.

He is accused of being an al Qaeda insider who drove bin Laden as part of a security detail that spirited the terrorist leader around Afghanistan. He was captured in November 2001, allegedly rushing two anti-aircraft rockets to the battle for Kandahar.

Hamdan claims he worked for bin Laden for a $200-a-month salary, not ideology.

His lawyers say he had been breaking down emotionally after more than a year of virtual solitary confinement behind Camp Delta's razor wire.

He has become distracted, erratic, angry and at times felt hopelessness, according to an affidavit from a psychiatrist consulting on his case.

Prison camp officials say there is no such thing as solitary at Guantánamo.

The Pentagon's chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said Tuesday night that he admired the judge's ''thoroughness and attentiveness'' in his exchange with Hamdan.

But should the driver continue to boycott his trial, Morris said, it should have no impact on the legitimacy of any outcome -- ``no more effect then when those downtown anywhere chooses not to participate.''

Hamdan's lawyer, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, said the source of his client's frustration ``is not one thing. It's a thousand things.''

Lawyers have been arguing this week on a range of issues, from political influence to whether to drop a conspiracy charge, to whether confessions from interrogation can be used at his trial.

Hamdan's case has been the centerpiece of the evolving war courts.

He was the first charged in the earlier format in August 2004, and, after Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he was among the first three men charged in the latest trials.

Only one other captive's case has gone further.

Last year Australian David Hicks, 31, pleaded guilty to providing material support for terror for resisting the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as an al Qaeda foot soldier -- in exchange for a nine-month sentence, most of it served in his native Adelaide. He is now free.

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