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Defense Attorney Illness Delays Guantanamo Trial

   VOA News 13 August 2010
   In  this  photo  of  a  sketch  by  courtroom  artist Janet Hamlin and
   reviewed by a U.S. Department of Defense official, Canadian Omar Khadr
   attends jury selection for his war crimes at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval
   Base in Cuba, 11 Aug 2010

Photo: AP

   In  this  photo  of  a  sketch  by  courtroom  artist Janet Hamlin and
   reviewed by a U.S. Department of Defense official, Canadian Omar Khadr
   attends  jury selection for his war crimes trial at the courthouse for
   the  U.S.  military war crimes commission in the Camp Justice compound
   of Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, 11 Aug 2010

   The first war crimes trial of the Obama administration has been put on
   hold  for  at  least  a  month  as  the defense attorney seeks medical
   treatment.
   Army   Lieutenant  Colonel  Jon  Jackson  collapsed  during  testimony
   Thursday  during  the  trial  of  Omar Khadr, a Canadian native who is
   alleged  to  have  thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier in
   Afghanistan.   Khadr  was  15  years  old  at  the  time  of the 2002
   incident.
   The  military says Jackson will be flown out of Cuba for treatment for
   complications of recent gall bladder surgery.  Â
   Prosecutors  at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say Khadr
   is  a  terrorist  trained by al-Qaida, while the defense says he was a
   scared  boy  who  was coerced into giving a false confession.  Khadr,
   who  has  pleaded  not  guilty to charges that include murder, faces a
   life sentence if convicted.
   In  opening statements Thursday, prosecutor Jeff Groharing told a jury
   of  seven  U.S.  military  officers that Khadr said that when he first
   arrived at Guantanamo, he said that thinking about killing an American
   would make him feel better.
   But  Jackson  said  Khadr  only told interrogators what they wanted to
   hear.   He  said the then-teenager was at the al-Qaida compound where
   he  was  detained  because  his father, an alleged terrorist financier
   with close ties to Osama bin Laden, sent him there.
   The defense argues that interrogators coerced admissions of guilt from
   Khadr through torture and fear, including suggestions that he would be
   raped.
   The  United  Nations  special  envoy  for children in armed conflicts,
   Radhika  Coomaraswamy,  has  warned  that  Khadr's  trial  could set a
   dangerous  precedent  by allowing children to face prosecution for war
   crimes.  She says child soldiers must be treated as victims and given
   a chance for rehabilitation.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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