[Ppnews] Canadian Omar Khadr pleads guilty to throwing grenade that killed US soldier when he was 15

[Political Prisoner News]

Guantanamo inmate pleads guilty

Canadian Omar Khadr admits to throwing grenade that killed US soldier 
in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/10/20101025142318598641.html
Last Modified: 25 Oct 2010 16:01 GMT


A Canadian prisoner in Guantanamo Bay has pleaded guilty to killing 
an American soldier while he was a young teenager as part of a deal 
that will allow him to avoid a war crimes trial.

Omar Khadr on Monday pleaded guilty to five charges, including 
murder, for throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier in 
Afghanistan in 2002. He was just 15 at the time of the incident, 
which occurred during a fierce firefight at an al-Qaeda compound in 
Afghanistan.

Khadr, now 24, also admitted to planting improvised explosive devices 
and receiving weapons training from al-Qaeda. His defence lawyers say 
that because Khadr was a child when the offences occurred, he should 
not be tried for war-crimes.

The exact terms of the plea deal were not immediately disclosed, but 
Khadr is due to be sentenced by a military jury in several days. The 
sentence they impose is bound by the plea deal.

Khadr would be allowed to trasfer back to his native Canada after 
serving a year of his sentence as part of the deal, the military 
judge in charge of the case said.

Trial criticised

The US has argued that Khadr, who was badly wounded during the 
fighting, is a war criminal because he was not a regular solider. But 
his case has long outraged opponants to Guantanamo, who say he was a 
child soldier and was subjected to mistreatment while in US custody.

John Terrett, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Washington DC, said that 
the proceedings against Khadr are unprecedented.  "In many ways this 
whole thing has been a trial of firsts and onlys," he said.

"He's the only Canadian citizen in Guantanamo and he's the only child 
soldier- He was arrested at the age of 15. He has pled guilty to all 
five charges against, and it has become that this trial is coming to 
a plea-bargain end."

Khadr's defence team say he was pushed into fighting the US by his 
father, said to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Human rights 
defenders have criticised Barack Obama, the US president, for seeking 
to prosecute Khadr.

"It's particularly galling that a president who promised to restore 
human rights is beginning the first trial here with a child soldier 
who was abused for years in US custody and was taken to a war zone by 
his dad," Jennifer Turner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties 
Union who is at Guantanamo to observe proceedings against Khadr, said.

Many of Obama's supporters have been angered by his failure to close 
Guantanamo, despite promising to do so in his campaign and ordering 
the government to do so as one of his first acts as president.

Around 170 prisoners are still being held at Guantanamo. 
Congressional opposition to its closure, and difficulty in finding 
countries to take the men held there, has stalled Obama's plan to 
close the prison.




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