Gitmo Trial on Canadian Terrorist Getting Underway

Gitmo's youngest terrorist is about to go to trial for throwing a hand grenade that killed a US medic.

Eight years after his capture as a teenager on an Afghan battlefield, a long-delayed trial is beginning Tuesday for Guantanamo's youngest detainee.
A U.S. military judge ruled Monday that purported confessions by Canadian detainee Omar Khadr can be used against him, dismissing arguments they were tainted by mistreatment and dashing the defense's last hope for derailing the trial in the slaying of an American soldier.
His age — Khadr was only 15 when he was captured in 2002 — has exposed the administration of President Barack Obama to criticism from child advocates. The prosecution will receive added scrutiny as this is the first trial under the embattled war-crimes tribunals inherited from the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, the UN is protesting, claiming that he should be considered a "child soldier" and saying that the precedent being set is the wrong one.

A top United Nations official on Tuesday denounced the Pentagon's trial of so-called "child soldier" Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, saying the proceeding was a violation of international legal norms and "may endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world."
"Since World War II, no child has been prosecuted for a war crime," Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N.'s special representative for Children and Armed Conflict said in a statement distributed by the U.N. on the eve of Khadr's trial here.
"Child soldiers must be treated primarily as victims … The Omar Khadr case will set a precedent that may endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world," he said.
The sharp criticism from the U.N. official created yet another public relations dilemma for Pentagon officials as they prepare to try Khadr, a Canadian citizen who has spent nearly a third of his life at Guantanamo, in the first military commission trial during Barack Obama's presidency.

By: Brant