Canadian Guantanamo inmate's trial bad precedent: U.N

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS |
Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:48am EDT


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The trial of a Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee for crimes he is accused of committing while a minor in Afghanistan may set a dangerous precedent for child soldiers worldwide, a top U.N. official said on Tuesday.
The U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said in a statement that the trial of Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, set to begin on Tuesday at the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was of dubious legality.She urged the United States not to go ahead with the trial."The statute of the International Criminal Court makes it clear that no one under 18 will be tried for war crimes, and prosecutors in other international tribunals have used their discretion not to prosecute children," she said."Since World War Two, no child has been prosecuted for a war crime," Coomaraswamy said. "Child soldiers must be treated primarily as victims and alternative procedures should be in place aimed at rehabilitation or restorative justice."A U.S. military judge ruled on Monday that Khadr's confessions to interrogators can be used as evidence against him in his murder and terrorism trial. Khadr's lawyers had argued the statements were obtained through t!
orture and therefore inadmissible as evidence."The Omar Khadr case will set a precedent that may endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world," Coomaraswamy said."Even if Omar Khadr were to be tried in a national jurisdiction, juvenile justice standards are clear -- children should not be tried before military tribunals," she added.Toronto-born defendant Khadr was captured at age 15 on an Afghan battlefield. Now 23, he has spent a third of his life in the Guantanamo detention camp, and faces five charges that could put him in prison for life.Khadr was captured in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002 and is charged with murdering a U.S. soldier with a grenade.He is also charged with making explosives for use against U.S.-led forces, spying on U.S. convoys, providing material support for terrorism and conspiring with al Qaeda to commit terrorism against civilians.Khadr is the youngest of 176 men held at Guantanamo.His case will be th!
e first contested trial at Guantanamo under the administration!
of Pres
ident Barack Obama, who criticized and then revamped the tribunals and missed his January deadline for shutting down the detention camp.(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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