By Stephen Kopko
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen accused of murdering United States military personnel in Afghanistan, is set to stand trial in July. Khadr is one of the six Guantanamo Bay detainees being prosecuted in front of United States military commissions. Controversy surrounds the trial of Khadr. He was fifteen years old at the time that he allegedly committed the murder. Therefore, some human rights groups as well as the United Nations believe that he should not be prosecuted for the murder because he was indoctrinated as a child soldier.
The United States will prosecute Khadr for the murder of a United States Special Forces soldier. In 2002 United States military forces engaged in hostilities with extremists in eastern Afghanistan. After the military excursion ended, soldiers approached and destroyed a compound where the extremists were hiding. As they were approaching the compound, someone from inside threw a grenade at the soldiers. The explosion from the grenade resulted in the death of one soldier and blinded another. Khadr was the only person that was found inside the compound. He was arrested and eventually became a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. At the time of the incident, Khadr was fifteen years old.
The Obama Administration has been criticized for prosecuting Khadr. United Nations officials, human rights advocates, and Khadr’s lawyers believe that Khadr was a child soldier at the time the incident happened and should not be prosecuted. At the age of ten, Khadr moved to Afghanistan with his family. His father became apart of Osama bin Laden’s organization. Therefore, Khadr became indoctrinated with bin Laden’s message and mission at a young age and became a child soldier. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations Special Representative for children in armed conflict stated that “the U.N position is that children should not be prosecuted for war crimes.” Also, there has been allegations that Khadr was tortured as a prisoner at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.
The United States will try Khadr for his actions in July. According to the senior prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Captain John Murphy, Khadr’s background will be taken into consideration by the commission in determining his guilt or innocence. He stated that “even in our traditional court system, we try fifteen year olds, and we try them as adults.”
Despite the arguments against prosecuting child soldiers, there is no United States or international law prohibiting their prosecution. Nevertheless, past war crimes tribunals have set the precedent of not trying child soldiers. Professor Michael Newton of the Vanderbilt University stated that the consensus in the international legal community is not to prosecute child soldiers.
For more information, please see:
MSNBC–U.S. trial of ex-boy solider raises fierce debate–10 February 2010
CBC News–Omar Khadr: Coming of age in a Guantanamo Bay jail cell–23 June 2009
Humans Rights Watch–The Omar Khadr Case: A Teenager Imprisoned at Guantanamo–June 2007
