Canadian Gitmo detainee charged

Story Highlights

• Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade
• Khadr must be arraigned with 30 days of being charged; no trial date set yet
• Khadr's charge follows that of Australian David Hicks
• Hicks was sentenced to nine months in prison to be served in Australia

From Mike Mount
CNN Washington Bureau

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military has charged a 20-year-old Canadian held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a suspected terrorist with murder and other crimes, the Pentagon announced.

Omar Ahmed Khadr, captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he was 15, was formally charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying, according to the Pentagon's announcement on Tuesday.

The charge of murder stems from a gunfight during which he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, before being captured by U.S. troops.

Khadr received about a month of one-on-one training from an al Qaeda member on rocket-propelled grenades, rifles, pistols, hand grenades and explosives in June 2002, according to his charge sheet. It said he spied on the U.S. military, converted land mines to roadside bombs intended to target U.S. troops and engaged coalition troops in small arms fire.

In charging Khadr, the U.S. becomes the first country to try a war crimes suspect who was a child at the time of the alleged violations, The Associated Press cited his Pentagon-appointed defense attorney, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Volkey, as saying.

Opponents of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay criticized authorities for subjecting Khadr to the same military trial system as adult terror suspects, AP reported. In any other conflict, he would have been treated as a child soldier, AP quoted Jumana Musa, advocacy director of Amnesty International, as saying.

Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said Khadr must be held accountable, AP reported.

Khadr was charged with similar counts once before under the original rules created for trying suspected terrorists, but those charges were later dropped after the Supreme Court decided the courts were not legal.

No trial date has been set, but under the rules for military commissions, Khadr must be arraigned within 30 days of being charged and have his trial within 120 days of being charged.

The new charges come under the guidelines Congress created last year to try the suspects.

David Hicks, known as the Australian Taliban, was the first to be charged a second time under the new rules. He pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to nine months in prison to be served in Australia.

Khadr's father Ahmed Said Khadr, was a "trusted associate" of Osama bin Laden, and Khadr's brother, Abdullah, has been charged with supplying al Qaeda with weapons to use against Americans in Afghanistan, federal prosecutors have said.

The Khadr family visited bin Laden and his family at their compound in Pakistan in 1997 and 1998, federal prosecutors have said.