Human rights dominate a case involving a man just 15 at the time of his alleged crimes, writes CHRIS STEPHEN
US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s human rights credentials come under the spotlight today as a military commission begins the prosecution of al-Qaeda suspect Omar Khadr.
Controversy has dogged the case of Khadr, a Canadian citizen, from the start, not least because he is accused of committing offences while aged 15, making him the first juvenile to go before a modern western war crimes court.
Allegations of torture, denial of rights and his eight years in detention have led to criticism of the US government by the United Nations, human rights groups and the Canadian Bar Association.
And Mr Obama’s decision to try him through a military commission rather than a conventional criminal court has led to allegations he has maintained the apparatus of the former Bush administration.
Khadr, now 23, was arrested by US forces in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was found wounded amid the bombed-out ruins of an al-Qaeda compound after a firefight with special forces.
He was accused of throwing a grenade that killed a special forces sergeant and was interrogated at the US air base at Bagram and flown to Guantánamo Bay to be classed as an enemy combatant.
But his lawyers say there is no evidence to back the charge it was Khadr, and not one of the al-Qaeda fighters, who threw the grenade. Nor do they agree a video found in the rubble, showing Khadr in the company of al-Qaeda men as they prepare and deploy land mines, justifies a second charge of aiding and abetting terrorism.
Once at Guantánamo Bay, Khadr and his lawyers alleged he was tortured, banished to solitary confinement and forced to lie in his own urine. The case is potentially embarrassing for Mr Obama because he campaigned against both the military commissions and the Guantánamo Bay prison as a presidential candidate.
The White House insists that it has made changes to the military commissions to ensure a fair trial.
Khadr is the son of a former al-Qaeda leader, Ahmed. In the years before 9/11, the family moved between Canada and Afghanistan, and for a time were neighbours of Osama bin Laden, whose children played with Khadr.
After the World Trade Center attacks, the Khadr family moved to Pakistan, but Omar, apparently radicalised, volunteered to go into Afghanistan to act as a Pashtun translator for a group of Arab al-Qaeda fighters. He was with the group when they were attacked by US forces.
Khadr’s trial process was already under way when, in 2005, the supreme court ruled that the military commissions violated the Geneva Conventions and denied due process. The Bush administration reformed the commissions in 2006 and a new trial process began, only to be delayed as the Obama administration reformed the process a second time.
The controversy has spread to Canada, with the supreme court in Ottowa ruling in January that the incarceration violates Khadr’s rights, and also that Canadian officers improperly took part in a series of interrogations of the suspect at Guantánamo Bay.
As the trial unfolds, questions are likely to be asked about allegations of torture at Guantánamo Bay, and also about why Mr Obama has yet to deliver on his election promise to close the facility.
Reuters adds: The US defence department has relented and said journalists can report the name of a former army interrogator testifying in the Khadr trial.
The about-face came three months after the Pentagon banned four journalists from attending tribunals at Guantánamo Bay because they used Sgt Joshua Claus’s name in reporting from the base in May.
A spokeswoman said the military had decided his name could now be used because the interrogator’s own actions in giving media interviews made it unnecessary to conceal his name.