US to make history trying alleged child war criminal

Omar Khadr was wounded by US soldiers during a battle near Khost, Afghanistan, and taken into US custody in July 2002. He has spent most of the past five years in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay.

During his capture he was shot three times and is nearly blind in one eye as a result of his injuries. The US military says Mr Khadr threw a grenade that killed a US Green Beret sergeant, Christopher Speer, and wounded another sergeant, Layne Morris.

Mr Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Marine lieutenant colonel Colby Vokey, said the US would become the first country in modern history to try a war crimes suspect who was a child at the time of the alleged violations if a trial went ahead.

Mr Khadr has been charged with murder, attempted murder, providing support to terrorism, conspiracy and spying under rules for military trials adopted last year. The conspiracy charge is based on acts allegedly committed before Mr Khadr was 10, according to his defence team.

Amnesty International strongly criticised the decision to subject Mr Khadr to a military tribunal.

"To have held a 15-year-old boy in the harsh and lawless conditions of Guantánamo for five years has already been a travesty of justice - and to put him before an unfair 'military commission' trial simply adds to a disgraceful record in his case," said the Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen.

Ms Allen said the US authorities should transfer his case to a civilian federal court on the US mainland.

Toronto-born Mr Khadr faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

The Pentagon said Mr Khadr must be held accountable.

"The defence department will continue to uphold the law and bring unlawful enemy combatants to justice through the military commissions process," it said.

Mr Speer's widow and Mr Morris filed a civil lawsuit against Mr Khadr and his father. In February, a judge awarded them $102.6m (£51m).

Dennis Edney, a Canadian lawyer for Mr Khadr's family, said the new tribunal system, which allows coerced and hearsay evidence, "provides Mr Khadr with almost no chance of proving his innocence.

"The aim is to provide a showcase to justify the US administration decision to arrest Mr. Khadr and other men like him in the first place," Mr Edney told the Associated Press.

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