Canadian Omar Khadr faces military tribunal

Canadian Omar Khadr, the last westerner left in Guantanamo Bay, will face trial by military tribunal unlike the high-profile 9/11 plotters who will be brought to New York for trial in a civilian courts where they have far greater rights and protections, US officials announced. Khadr’s lawyer Barry Coburn, accused the administration of resorting to Bush-era injustice.

Some other terrorist suspects, including Khadr, who is accused of killed a US medic during a firefight in Afghanistan when he was only 15 in 2002, will be tried in military tribunals – the special courts created by the Bush administration and widely discredited because they admitted evidence that would be outlawed in civilian or normal military courts. However the White House admits the prison camp on a leased naval base in Cuba won’t be closed by the year’s deadline in January. It remains unknown whether the military tribunals will be held at Guantanamo or elsewhere.

Note: some details of this summary were derived from a 2008 CBC News article.

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