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.

- Michael Savage