60 Minutes: Boy charged with war crimes at age 15 faces life sentence in US military trial
Mike Aivaz and Muriel KanePublished:
Tuesday November 20, 2007
Omar Khadr is a young Canadian citizen currently imprisoned at Guantanamo and facing a military trial for war crimes he allegedly committed in Afghanistan at the age of 15.
In July 2002, US special forces in eastern Afghanistan got a tip that al Qaeda forces were holed up nearby. After hours of fighting, the soldiers entered the bombed-out compound but were met by a grenade thrown over the wall that killed one man. They then found Omar Khadr lying in the rubble, badly hurt and begging them -- in perfect English -- to kill him.
The United States has charged Omar with murder, on the grounds that there was no one else left alive in the compound who could have thrown the grenade, and he now faces a possible sentence of life in prison. The only concession made for his youth was not to ask for the death penalty.
Omar has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the last five years, much of that time in a windowless maximum security cell. Amnesty International has claimed that he was severely tortured and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and also that the Canadian government, rather than helping him, may have been complicit in his mistreatment.
LinkHere
Tuesday November 20, 2007
Omar Khadr is a young Canadian citizen currently imprisoned at Guantanamo and facing a military trial for war crimes he allegedly committed in Afghanistan at the age of 15.
In July 2002, US special forces in eastern Afghanistan got a tip that al Qaeda forces were holed up nearby. After hours of fighting, the soldiers entered the bombed-out compound but were met by a grenade thrown over the wall that killed one man. They then found Omar Khadr lying in the rubble, badly hurt and begging them -- in perfect English -- to kill him.
The United States has charged Omar with murder, on the grounds that there was no one else left alive in the compound who could have thrown the grenade, and he now faces a possible sentence of life in prison. The only concession made for his youth was not to ask for the death penalty.
Omar has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the last five years, much of that time in a windowless maximum security cell. Amnesty International has claimed that he was severely tortured and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and also that the Canadian government, rather than helping him, may have been complicit in his mistreatment.
LinkHere
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 2:21 PM
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