A U.S. military appeals court reinstated terrorism charges against Omar Khadr for murder, conspiracy, spying and supporting terrorism. Khadr, 21, has been held at the U.S. detention facility at a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for the past five years. He was detained in Afghanistan for allegedly killing Sgt. Christopher Speer, an Army special forces soldier, and wounding another with a grenade. Khadr, who has been detained at Gauntanamo Bay since he was 15, has been treated as an adult since his capture.
On June 4, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review under Army Col. Peter Brownback dismissed charges against Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was Osama bin Laden's personal driver. Brownback dismissed the charges because prosecutors had designated the two detainees as “enemy combatants.” The tribunal established to handle Gauntanamo Bay cases was set up to try “unlawful enemy combatants”, and Brownback contested that international law requires a different legal process for “legal enemy combatants.” No consideration was made concerning Khadr's age at the time of his capture.
The charges were reinstated after a U.S. military appeals court established solely to examine the designation of detainees. The appeals court ruled that Brownback “erred in ruling he lacked authority … to determine whether Mr. Khadr is an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’.”
According to a report by Amnesty International, Khadr was routinely subjected to stress positions and isolation during his detention, both in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay.
War crimes tribunals were established for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay after the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that U.S. President George W. Bush had violated the constitution when he ordered commissions to try suspected terrorists. The U.S. constitution grants Congress the sole authority to make laws concerning legal proceedings.
Only one person, Australian David Hicks, has been convicted of a crime since the detention facility opened in 2002.
