This is the extreme version of the absurd argument that combatants are owed access to civil process. This kid is a Canadian, captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, after killing a US medic. He has no Constitutional rights, and no rights to civil due process. He is an enemy combatant, and under the laws of war he has committed war crimes. That is military law. Stuff your damn trial lawyer.
Canadian teenager faces US 'war on terror' tribunal
Apr 05 10:31 AM US/Eastern
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A Canadian-born teenager accused of planting bombs for Al-Qaeda and killing a US soldier in Afghanistan faced a US military tribunal in Guantanamo as defense lawyers raised fresh concerns about the fairness of the proceedings.
Omar Ahmed Khadr was captured in Afghanistan by US forces in July 2002, when he was 15, and his lawyers say he is too young to be charged with war crimes.
Khadr, now 19, appeared for a pre-trial hearing before one of the special "war on terror" tribunals set up by President George W. Bush's administration to try inmates held in Guantanamo.
Only 10 of some 490 inmates held at the prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been charged in the more than four years since the camp was opened.
Khadr, whose lawyer alleges he has been tortured and abused at Guantanamo, is accused of killing a US medic during a battle with American troops near Khost in Afghanistan.
Prosecutors allege that he comes from a family with close links to Al-Qaeda and that his father, an Egyptian-born Canadian, was a financier of the terror network's operations.
The father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was killed in a firefight in October 2003, and his other children have also been accused of terrorist ties.
Lawyers for Khadr argue that their client has been denied due process and have demanded that the court order the prosecution to share relevant information in the case.
At issue is whether the tribunals are subject to US legal standards and the civil rights enshrined in the Constitution, said Colonel Dwight Sullivan, chief defense counsel for the detainees facing the tribunals.
"That is one of the most fundamental issues that's going to get resolved here," Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. "In my mind, it is not a resolved question."
The Bush administration maintains that the tribunals, or commissions, are necessary because members of Al-Qaeda cannot be treated as US citizens or as conventional prisoners of war from a regular army.
Rejecting criticism from human rights groups and foreign governments, the Bush administration has refused to shut down the Guantanamo camp and is pressing ahead with pre-trial hearings despite a case pending before the US Supreme Court that could determine the fate of the tribunals.
Khadr's civilian lawyers have filed a petition in federal court asking that the proceedings in Guantanamo be suspended until the high court issues its decision on the legitimacy of the tribunals. The court is expected to rule by July.
On Tuesday, Abdul Zahir, an Afghan accused of plotting with Al-Qaeda and attacking foreign journalists in 2002, appeared before the tribunal and deferred entering a plea. The prosecution had failed to provide a written translation of the charges in his native Farsi. |
