San Juan, Puerto Rico – The U.S. military filed a murder charge Tuesday against the Canadian son of an alleged al-Qaeda financier, who was detained as a teen in Afghanistan and has spent almost five years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Omar Khadr, now 20, joined the Taliban in Afghanistan and allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Green Beret soldier in July 2002. He was captured as he lay wounded after that firefight, at an al-Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan.
The U.S. military charged him with murder, attempted murder, providing support to terrorism, conspiracy and spying, under rules for military trials adopted last year. The military said the Toronto-born Khadr would be arraigned within 30 days. He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Opponents of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay criticized authorities for subjecting Khadr to the same military trial system as adult terrorism suspects. In any other conflict he would have been treated as a child soldier, said Jumana Musa, advocacy director of Amnesty International.
“This was, in fact, a child,” Musa said. “From the beginning, he was never treated in accordance with his age. He was treated like any adult taken into custody.”
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said Khadr must be held accountable: “The Defense Department will continue to uphold the law and bring unlawful enemy combatants to justice through the military commissions process.”
Several of Khadr’s family members have been accused of ties to Islamic extremists.
