Canadian Becomes First Child Soldier Since Nuremberg To Stand Trial For War Crimes
An inmate at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba is set to be the first child soldier to go on trial for war crimes since Nuremberg, after a military judge ruled that there were no legal obstacles preventing the camp’s special military commissions from prosecuting him.
Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, was 15 at the time of his alleged crimes. His defence team said his age should see him treated as a victim and rehabilitated, rather than prosecuted as a war criminal. He has had no access to education while at Guantanamo, where he has spent more than a quarter of his life.
But in a brief ruling which has now been made public, the military judge Peter Brownback rejected the plea, paving the way for trial and a new chapter in Guantanamo’s history. He said international laws dealing with the treatment of child soldiers were “interesting as a matter of policy”, but they did not prevent the military commission set up to try the Guantanamo inmates prosecuting Mr Khadr, who is now 21.
After the publication of the ruling, the head of Mr Khadr’s defence team, Lt-Cdr William Kuebler, said the decision to go ahead with the trial was “disappointing, but not surprising”.
“The judges here are under a lot of pressure,” he said. “This prosecution is an embarrassment to the United States. The US has been a leader in international efforts to protect child soldiers, but we’re flouting them in Omar’s case.”
Human rights organisations have voiced concerns over Mr Khadr’s treatment since his arrival at Guantanamo nearly six years ago. Despite his age at the time, Mr Khadr was never treated as a juvenile inmate. He went into the adult camp, rather than Camp Iguana, a camp for minors. His case has also prompted an official protest from the UN’s Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy.
Lt-Cdr Kuebler now believes Mr Khadr’s only hope of receiving a fair trial is through the Canadian courts, but the Canadian government has refused to intervene in the case, despite growing international pressure. The UK’s five leading legal associations have raised concerns with the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, urging him to repatriate Mr Khadr home. The former attorney general Lord Goldsmith, who masterminded the return of the British nationals from Guantanamo, is also calling for Mr Khadr to be tried in his home country.
“It’s the principle that matters as far as I’m concerned,” said Lord Goldsmith. “For a long time I have felt Guantanamo Bay was not right in principle or practice. But I think that is accentuated in the case of someone who was a child at the time, and different considerations therefore apply in how they are dealt with. I would support Omar’s return to Canada, and for Canada to deal with him within their law.”
Mr Khadr was detained by US soldiers after a firefight at a compound in a small village near Khost, eastern Afghanistan, in July 2002. He is accused of throwing a grenade that killed US Delta Force soldier, Christopher Speer.
After being shot at least twice through the chest and all but blinded in his left eye, Mr Khadr was taken to a US prison at Bagram, air base, where he was interrogated. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay in October 2002 and faces charges of murder, attempted murder, spying, conspiracy and providing material aid for terrorism.
Mr Khadr suffers from a number of ailments, mostly stemming from the injuries he suffered during the battle before his capture. His defence team, the only people with regular access to Mr Khadr, says spending his adolescent years in Guantanamo without access to education has also taken a toll on his educational development and mental health. Access to his family has been irregular.
Mr Khadr will appear before the judge tomorrow for a pre-trial hearing. It is expected that lawyers for the prosecution will ask for the date of his trial to be set.
© 2008 The Independent
Amy Goodman’s interview with the author of a new book on Khadr:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/5/guantanamos_child_the_untold_story_of
Please read the statement by the Canada-based organization, Lawyers Against the War:
http://www.nightslantern.ca/law/omarkhadr13june07.htm
There is no hope for Khadr.
Perhaps if we still had Jean Chretien as PM…but HArper, despite having campaigned as being a defneder of Canadian sovreignty (demonstrated by fierce rhetoric about Canada’ north - during the election anyway - after the election the rhetoric faded into obscurity) has demonstrated himself to be GWB’s lapdog…or like a virtual kid-brother.
He would love nothing more than to bring the neo-con-fascism of Cheney/Bush movement into Canada.
He will nto act or contradict US policy in any venue…quite the contrary, Canada has been acting as a US proxy in international events that the US has boycotted and in UN committees that the US does not have a seat.
Often this means reversing long-standing Canadian stands, and has quickly eroded our international standing as defenders of human rights and non-violence.
The end of this is that Harper is complicit in the crimes of the US Government…more than that, he and is government are active participants and supporters.
Jaguara
I am almost looking at this as if it is a set up for to help Harper in the next election. The neos want Harper in big time, the US wants it as well. He has nothing but good things to say about Israel, and didn’t sign Kyoto and last week that lady from Mexico gets sent home all of a sudden. He is a lock step israel loving fag from Alberta. Where wife beating is a sport.
Harper is from Ontario, his father was a senior executive of the Canadian branch office of the Exxon corp. Wife beating may be a sport where you’re from dude, but in Alberta it’s a legit defence for offing your husband.
I can’t believe I felt compelled to defend the harpy…
“Mr Khadr was detained by US soldiers after a firefight at a compound in a small village near Khost, eastern Afghanistan, in July 2002. He is accused of throwing a grenade that killed US Delta Force soldier, Christopher Speer.”
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Watch this video (which I think was also shown on British television) of a US pilot dropping a bomb on a group of unidentified Iraqis walking down the street - a few of them, at least, definitely look like children:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BUN410A.html
America has become a barbaric, and lawless, nation, massacring innocent civilians - including children - with impunity and glee, while treating a kid like an adult for committing a far lesser “crime”.
“At no point during the exchange between the pilot and controllers does anyone ask whether the Iraqis are armed or posing a threat.
“When the pilot asks permission to fire, he reports a large number of people…not armed people. People. And permission is granted instantly. This is an indication that the mission guidance is to shoot anyone who is in the street. This is a clear war crime, and one that begins with the commander’s stated intent in the operations order. The pilot’s exclamation of satisfaction, “Aw dude!” at the end just underlines how this casual sadism comes to dominate the psyches of those who are part of a military occupation force, and how the ground reality become ‘race war.’”
How many people recall that the US Congress just recently changed the wording of the US War Crime Laws, to apply to the detainees in the so-called “War On Terror” instead of the Real War Criminals in Washington?
Skippy:
I was just joking about the wife thing. As for Harper, well we don’t have Diebold yet so there is hope for this country.
good luck, are you a homophobe?
Thank you OldRascal! I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when I saw this picture of a boy “war criminal”. How tragically absurd that the real war criminals - Bush and Cheney, et al - aren’t being prosecuted. Bush’s face should be here!
Collinsa writes: “How tragically absurd that the real war criminals - Bush and Cheney, et al - aren’t being prosecuted.”
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The real criminals are also US soldiers and US citizens.
You obviously didn’t click that link of a video, with sound, from the cockpit of a US helicopter showing Iraqi children being blown to smithereens.
Another US helicopter strafed a primary school, killing several small children. The pilot’s excuse: someone fired at us from down there.
Nothing is off limits in Iraq. These are not isolated incidents; such unlawful killings are part and parcel of the occupation.
Clear war crimes are being committed, not by Bush or Cheney, not by a military commander, but by regular American citizens serving in the US military, and by choice.
Americans are also to blame. Bush’s rating was over 70% when he decided to invade Iraq. Americans didn’t care how many Iraqis were going to suffer. America had been attacked, so now was not the time to ask questions - now was the time to rally around the president.
Americans ignored world opinion, and decided to embark on this occupation virtually alone. Only American opinion mattered. Bush was an American, so his opinion took priority over the opinion of foreigners. Bush termed the invasion “Shock and Awe”, and still Americans weren’t repelled.
Americans are patriotic to the point of insanity. Almost every foreigner who visits America is shocked by how Americans worship their country, sing the national anthem at sporting events, at school, and just about anywhere else.
If the economy were booming today, and only Iraqis were suffering, Bush would be a very popular president.
Let’s not pretend Americans have learned a lesson from the invasion of Iraq - they have not! Because, instead of blaming themselves, instead of taking a good look at how diseased their country has become, they are blaming Bush 100% - whom Americans re-elected for a second term!
(You can argue about whether Bush won the first election, but America’s electoral system is not rigged like a dictatorship, where people are forced to vote for Bush, or where 95% of votes are thrown away. Many people didn’t vote - for them, Iraq was not an issue. And of those that did, not enough voted against Bush - the result was close!)
Kuebler knew he was going to lose that one because the US recruits students who are still in school (although the students don’t actually serve until they are of age). It is a move to try to get Canada to act and to get Americans more repulsed by what is happening to Khadr. Because of this ruling, the US broke international law so one can argue that anything that follows is a kangaroo court, so it does set up grounds for an appeal.
Thanks for all the information - look forward to looking at it.
There is another thread here on CD called “Canadian Teenagers March Against Khadr Detention” - it wasn’t so much a demonstration as an envoy of students (and their teacher) from a particular riding (voting district) who were delivering a petition from that district.
RE: - The end of this is that Harper is complicit in the crimes of the US Government…more than that, he and is government are active participants and supporters.
Harper never intended to be otherwise - even before he became an assistant to former Reform leader Preston Manning. What scares me it that this is Harper’s “kinder gentler” image - wait what you will get if Harper ever has a majority!
Staying_sane_in_an_insane_world - why was the person who was accused of throwing the grenade originally listed as “deceased”? “Deceased” would basically rule out Khadr as the suspect.
Also, weren’t the Americans throwing grenades into the compound at the time? It could have even been friendly fire or self defense. I am not the murderous type, but if someone threw a grenade at at me and it hadn’t exploded yet - I am not waiting around until it does.
Now to look at the links.