GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Pentagon prosecutors provisionally finished presenting their case against Osama bin Laden's driver at the Guantánamo war court Tuesday, having called 13 witnesses across seven days.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, told a six-officer military panel by lunch that they were released for the day while defense attorneys and prosecutors worked out whether the Pentagon could call one more witness in the terrorism trial of Salim Hamdan.

At issue is whether the government will be permitted to let Robert McFadden, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent, describe a May 2003 interrogation of Hamdan at the Guantánamo prison camps.

`SACRED OATH'

The driver reportedly told McFadden that he had pledged a ''sacred oath of allegiance'' to bin Ladento seal his membership in al Qaeda. Hamdan denies he joined the group.

Hamdan is accused of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, for allegedly serving as the al Qaeda leader's sometime bodyguard and weapons courier, as well as his driver. The 37-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education says he took the job for wages, not ideology.

`COERCIVE'

Defense lawyers have sought to exclude the interrogation -- one of dozens conducted from Afghanistan to Cuba -- on grounds that guards moved Hamdan to solitary confinement and stripped him of his so-called ''comfort items'' beforehand. Absent the government proving otherwise at a hearing Wednesday, the military judge said he would exclude the fruits of the interrogation on grounds it was ``coercive.''

The interrogation is significant: It is the only known time Hamdan supposedly told his captors he had taken the pledge -- described by terror experts as a key milestone in joining the al Qaeda inner circle. McFadden also has said, in pretrial hearings, that Hamdan described being transfixed by the charismatic leader.

He quoted Hamdan as feeling an ''uncontrollable enthusiasm'' in the company of the 6-foot-5-inch Saudi.

Allred told the jury that the testimony they heard from a former ABC investigative reporter, John Miller, now an FBI spokesman, ''completes the government's case in chief.'' Miller was called to describe a May 1998 interview he conducted in Afghanistan with bin Laden, before he rose to international infamy.

In the interview, bin Laden described himself as at war with the United States. Once the interview was over, Miller testified, a bin Laden deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, said the meaning would soon be apparent.

That summer, suicide bombers struck at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, announcing al Qaeda's entry on the world stage.

NOT RECOGNIZED

Miller submitted his questions in writing, through Zawahiri, and was told he could ask no follow-up questions. At one point, making small talk, according to a videotape outtake shown in court, Miller told the Saudi millionaire in exile that he was ``the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt . . . a wealthy man, who grew up in a privileged situation and who fought on the front lines.''

Bin Laden appeared not to understand.

It was unclear what the testimony contributed to the case, the first U.S. war-crimes tribunal since World War II.

Asked whether he recognized Hamdan as one of a series of drivers who shuttled him to the secret interview, Miller replied: No.

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