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Former child soldier on trial at Guantanamo

North America correspondent Kim Landers

Canadian defendant Omar Khadr attends a hearing at Guantanamo Bay
Child soldier: Omar Khadr(

Janet Hamlin/Pool: AFP


The first trial to be held at Guantanamo Bay since Barack Obama became US president and promised to close the facility is underway.

Canadian detainee Omar Khadr was 15 when he was captured by US troops in Afghanistan in 2002.

He is the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay and also the last Western prisoner.

The decision to go ahead with Khadr's trial makes the US the first nation since World War II to try someone in a military tribunal for acts they allegedly committed as a minor.

The executive director of the Centre on Law and Security at New York University, Karen Greenberg, says the defence team will probably argue that Khadr was coerced.

"Under international law he's a child soldier," he said.

"The idea of the child soldier is that they really are not making the decisions that they make; that they are coerced into it, or brought up into it, and that's what they will probably argue."

The United Nations has condemned the trial, saying it could set a dangerous precedent for child soldiers worldwide.

"Juvenile justice standards are clear. Children should not be tried before military tribunals," The UN's special envoy for children in armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said in a statement.

Murder, spying charges

Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier, and he is now facing charges including murder, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

His lawyers say he is not a Taliban fighter, that he was taken to Afghanistan by his father, and that his confessions were obtained through degrading treatment including threats of rape and death.

The jury will be made up of US military officers.

The prosecutor has been asking the members of the jury pool today if they think it is inappropriate to try a juvenile for a serious crime, and if they have a problem with putting someone on trial eight years after the alleged offence.

None of the potential jurors expressed an objection.

The military commission is also the first to be held since the Obama administration revamped the rules.

Ms Greenberg says it is too early to tell what difference the changes have made.

"There is a lot of anticipation about what will happen - how clean the procedures will be, how open the court process will be," she said.

"I really do not think we have answers to these questions, and we don't have answers in general to the questions of the Obama administration and how Guantanamo is actually going to be different than it was under president Bush.

Khadr has refused a plea deal and faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.