GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – A jury of six U.S. military officers convicted Osama bin Laden's former driver of supporting terrorism but cleared him of conspiracy Wednesday in the first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay.

The Pentagon-selected jury deliberated for about eight hours over three days before returning its split decision against Salim Hamdan, who held his head in his hands and wept when a Navy captain on the jury read the verdict.

The jury reconvened hours later for a sentencing hearing in the hilltop courtroom on this U.S. base in southeastern Cuba. Hamdan, who is from Yemen and is about 37, faces life behind bars, though it is unclear where he would serve his time.

The military accused him of transporting missiles for al-Qaida and helping bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks by serving as his driver in Afghanistan. Defense attorneys said he was merely a low-level bin Laden employee, a minor member of a motor pool with a fourth-grade education who earned about $200 a month.

Defense lawyers had feared a guilty verdict was inevitable in the first war-crimes trial since the aftermath of World War II, saying the tribunal system's rules were designed to achieve convictions.

"I don't know if the panel can render fair what has already happened," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney, said as the jury deliberated.

But the Bush administration said Hamdan enjoyed a zealous defense and called the verdict fair.

The five-man, one-woman jury convicted Hamdan on five counts of supporting terrorism and found him not guilty on three others. He was cleared of two counts of conspiracy.

Jurors accepted the prosecution argument that Hamdan aided terrorism by serving as bin Laden's armed bodyguard and driver in Afghanistan while knowing that his boss was plotting attacks against the U.S.

The war crimes trial differed from the courts-martial used to prosecute American troops in Iraq or Vietnam. Hamdan did not have all the rights normally accorded either by U.S. civilian or military courts. The judge of the military commission allowed secret testimony and hearsay evidence. Hamdan was not judged by a jury of his peers and he received no Miranda warning about his rights.

But a White House statement described it as a “fair trial” and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said, “The fact that the jury did not find Hamdan guilty of all of the charges brought against him demonstrates that the jury weighed the evidence carefully.”

Deputy White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the conviction means prosecutors will proceed with 19 other cases.