Litigation

?Child Soldier? Sentenced in Military Commission

By Peter Hardin

In the first military commissions trial to be launched during the Obama administration, a former teenage al Qaeda fighter was sentenced by a judge to eight more years in custody.

Omar Khadr, 24, who was captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15, received a harsher sentence of 40 years from a military jury but was given the lesser sentence by a judge under a plea agreement, according to an Associated Press article.

Accused by prosecutors of war crimes, Khadr admitting throwing a grenade that left an American special forces medic dead. But the conclusion of proceedings did not end scrutiny of the prosecution; critics said the “child soldier” should have been returned home for rehabilitation, and questioned whether the battlefield death was a war crime.

Wrote Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First in Huffington Post: “If observers were hoping to see justice done at the Guantanamo Bay military commissions this past week, they were sorely disappointed. What we saw instead amounted to a show trial.”

She added, “When we think about justice, we usually think that truth has something to do with it.  If that’s the case, then I think we can safely say that justice was not done this past week at Guantanamo Bay.”

A lawyer for Khadr, Dennis Edney, said Khadr pleaded guilty in order to be repatriated to Canada. Toward that end, Edney said, Khadr signed an admission of facts that was “stunning in its false portrayal of him.” You can learn more about his case from Gavel Grab.

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