Litigation

New Questions About Prosecuting Youngest Detainee

By Peter Hardin

The first military commissions trial to be launched during the Obama administration has been interrupted, but that has not halted disturbing new questions about the prosecution.

According to a recent New York Times article, “Obama administration officials are alarmed by the first case to go to trial under revamped rules.” It is the trial at Guantanamo Bay of accused terror suspect Omar Khadr (see Gavel Grab), who was captured at age 15.

Not only was the former child soldier implicitly threatened by a U.S. interrogator with subjection to gang rape, but American officials fear the efforts they have made to reform military commission trials are undermined by the Khadr prosecution.

A grave question has subsequently been raised. In Huffington Post, Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First asks in a commentary, “Is the Obama Administration Guilty of a War Crime?”

Eviatar reports on that question raised by Loyola Law School professor David Glazier. Drawing on his paper, Eviatar writes that it violates the Constitution and international treaties to prosecute a suspect for crimes that did exist when the allegedly criminal acts were committed.

Khadr was captured in 2002. And he was charged with offenses with legally defined by the Military Commissions Act, which first took effect in 2006, she writes. Eviatar concludes:

“The laws of war should doom the military commission prosecution of Omar Khadr. And ultimately, for the U.S. government, that’s not a bad thing.”

Now 23, Khadr was captured in a firefight in Afghanistan in which he allegedly threw a grenade that left one U.S. soldier dead and another blind.

The trial will continue in October, the Associated Press reported. It was interrupted due to the sickness of Khadr’s attorney. Khadr is the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 02, 2010 (boomark / email).