US charges Guantanamo detainee with murder

The US military has filed murder charges against Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was a teenager when he was captured in Afghanistan and sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002.

Khadr, now 20, was also charged with providing support to terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying.

He faces a military trial at the prison in eastern Cuba under rules adopted last year and first used to try Australian detainee David Hicks.

Khadr is to appear in court within 30 days, the military said.

He allegedly threw a grenade that killed a US Special Forces soldier while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and allegedly planted mines targeting American convoys.

Toronto-born Khadr was captured as he lay wounded at an al-Qaida compound in eastern Afghanistan.

Khadr’s Pentagon-appointed defence 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.

The conspiracy charge is based on acts allegedly committed when Khadr was younger than 10, Vokey said.

The attorney urged Canada and the United States to negotiate a “political resolution” of the case to spare Khadr from a guaranteed conviction by “one of the greatest show trials on earth.”

Opponents of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay criticised authorities for subjecting Khadr to the same military trial system as adult terror suspects.

In any other conflict, he would have been treated as a child soldier, said Jumana Musa, advocacy director of Amnesty International.

“This was, in fact, a child,” Musa said.

“From the beginning, he was never treated in accordance with his age. He was treated like any adult taken into custody.”

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, said 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,” he said.

The US military said Khadr hurled a grenade that killed Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and wounded Army Sergeant Layne Morris, of West Jordan, Utah. The charges say those acts were carried out “in violation of the law of war,” but did not elaborate.

Speer’s widow and Morris were awarded more than €73m after filing a civil lawsuit against Khadr and his father.

The military alleges that Khadr also conducted surveillance of US troops and planted land mines targeting American convoys.

Khadr allegedly received a month of basic training from al-Qaida in June 2002 that included the use of rocket-propelled grenades, rifles, pistols and explosives, according to the charge sheet signed by Susan Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions.

Several of Khadr’s family members have been accused of ties to Islamic extremists.

His Egyptian-born father, Ahmad Said al-Khadr, was killed in Pakistan in 2003 alongside senior al Qaida operatives.

Canada is holding Khadr’s brother Abdullah on a US extradition warrant accusing him of supplying weapons to al-Qaida.

In March, the military tribunal at Guantanamo sentenced Hicks to nine months in prison after he pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism – the first conviction at a US war crimes trial since the Second World War.

Under an agreement with the court, he will serve his sentence in an Australian prison, but must remain silent about any alleged abuse while in custody.

Prosecutors say they plan to charge as many as 80 of the 385 men being held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

The US Supreme Court in June struck down the previous military tribunal system at Guantanamo as unconstitutional. Congress then passed a law establishing a new military tribunal system.

Dennis Edney, a Canadian lawyer for 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,” Edney said.

The high court is now considering a challenge to the revised tribunals. Some members of Congress have vowed to repeal the law that limits detainees’ access to civilian courts.