US:A young Canadian who was 15 when captured by US forces in Afghanistan has become the first prisoner at Guantánamo Bay to be tried for murder.
Omar Khadr, now 20, has been charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support to terrorism and spying. Although the Pentagon says it will not seek the death penalty, he could face life in jail.
Mr Khadr's lawyer, Muneer Ahmad, said the decision to put Mr Khadr on trial before a military war crimes tribunal meant the United States "will be the first country in modern history to try an individual who was a child at the time of the alleged war crimes".
Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said Mr Khadr, who is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed a US soldier in 2002, must be held accountable.
"The fact that youths have been used as enemy combatants is an unfortunate reality in many parts of the world. How old do you have to be to kill?" he said.
Unlike the case of Australian Guantánamo inmate David Hinks, Mr Khadr's case has sparked little public outrage in his home country of Canada, perhaps because of his family's alleged ties with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was alleged to have raised money for bin Laden and was killed by US forces in 2003. One brother, Abdurahman, was also held for a time at Guantánamo and another, Abdullah, is fighting extradition to the US on charges of supplying weapons to al-Qaeda.
Another of Mr Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyers, Lieut Col Colby Vokey, said Canada should intervene with the US government to avert what he described as a "show trial" before an illegitimate court.
"After nearly five years in such conditions, the government is now demanding his appearance before what can only amount to a kangaroo court. The fact that this administration has seen fit to designate this youth for trial by military commission is abhorrent."
US authorities charged Mr Khadr in 2005, but those charges were quashed last year after the Supreme Court declared illegitimate the previous legal regime used by the military against Guantánamo detainees. Congress has since set up a new system of military commissions, under which the latest charges were brought.