September 17, 2008
A 21-year-old Canadian terror suspect who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for six years will be tried in a war court on November.
Omar Khadr was a teenager at the time of the alleged attack in Afghanistan in 2002.
His trial will follow both the US and Canada's elections and could straddle Thanksgiving.
Khadr is accused at the Guantanamo Bay war court of throwing a grenade in a July 2002 firefight near Khost, Afghanistan, that killed a US commando. American forces were assaulting a suspected al-Qaida compound. Conviction could carry a life sentence.
His trial had earlier been set to open on October 8 but prosecutors and defense attorneys have yet to work out access to some proposed trial evidence and whether the government will permit a private mental health examination of Khadr.
Now, according to the war court calendar, the next alleged terrorist to face trial is Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, 39, of Yemen, who allegedly served as bin Laden's media secretary.
The Yemeni is accused of supporting terror as bin Laden's media secretary and sometime bodyguard. He allegedly produced al Qaeda "propaganda products", notably pre-September 11 recruiting films.
His tribunal is set to begin on October 27. Al-Bahlul said at a hearing last month he wants to boycott the trial itself and be brought from his Camp Delta cell only for verdict and potential sentencing.
Khadr is the Toronto-born scion of a radical Muslim family. He was 15 years old during the firefight in Afghanistan, which took place in the ninth month of the American invasion of Afghanistan.
Prosecutors have predicted a two to three-week trial for Khadr with five to eight days of government witnesses likely to include US forces who were at the firefight and US agents who interrogated the teen from Afghanistan to Cuba.
Across months of pretrial hearings his Pentagon lawyers have telegraphed a defense that could alternately argue he did not throw the grenade from inside a suspect al Qaeda compound, or that he was a child soldier at the time and not responsible.
Also, lawyers are floating a theory that Khadr was in shock when the grenade was thrown because the US had dropped two 500-pound bombs on the compound.
A 21-year-old Canadian terror suspect who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for six years will be tried in a war court on November.
Omar Khadr was a teenager at the time of the alleged attack in Afghanistan in 2002.
His trial will follow both the US and Canada's elections and could straddle Thanksgiving.
Khadr is accused at the Guantanamo Bay war court of throwing a grenade in a July 2002 firefight near Khost, Afghanistan, that killed a US commando. American forces were assaulting a suspected al-Qaida compound. Conviction could carry a life sentence.
His trial had earlier been set to open on October 8 but prosecutors and defense attorneys have yet to work out access to some proposed trial evidence and whether the government will permit a private mental health examination of Khadr.
Now, according to the war court calendar, the next alleged terrorist to face trial is Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, 39, of Yemen, who allegedly served as bin Laden's media secretary.
The Yemeni is accused of supporting terror as bin Laden's media secretary and sometime bodyguard. He allegedly produced al Qaeda "propaganda products", notably pre-September 11 recruiting films.
His tribunal is set to begin on October 27. Al-Bahlul said at a hearing last month he wants to boycott the trial itself and be brought from his Camp Delta cell only for verdict and potential sentencing.
Khadr is the Toronto-born scion of a radical Muslim family. He was 15 years old during the firefight in Afghanistan, which took place in the ninth month of the American invasion of Afghanistan.
Prosecutors have predicted a two to three-week trial for Khadr with five to eight days of government witnesses likely to include US forces who were at the firefight and US agents who interrogated the teen from Afghanistan to Cuba.
Across months of pretrial hearings his Pentagon lawyers have telegraphed a defense that could alternately argue he did not throw the grenade from inside a suspect al Qaeda compound, or that he was a child soldier at the time and not responsible.
Also, lawyers are floating a theory that Khadr was in shock when the grenade was thrown because the US had dropped two 500-pound bombs on the compound.
Source: The Australian
Posts
