Teenage terrorist or confused kid

He would become one of Guantanamo Bay's most controversial detainees.

Khadr, now 22, is the youngest inmate and, as a Canadian citizen, the only Westerner still held at Gitmo. He is accused of receiving one-on-one training from al Qaeda and was allegedly caught on a surveillance video making and planting roadside bombs where U.S. troops traveled -- video the Pentagon will not release.

Due to go to trial last month, Khadr is charged with war crimes including murder, spying, conspiracy and providing support to terrorism. But President Obama's order to close the detention facility at Gitmo has postponed the trial, and left the case in limbo.

Like the other remaining 245 Gitmo detainees, Khadr could be tried in the United States and face a life sentence. Or he might be sent back to Canada, where he could avoid trial and be set free.

Canuck wrote:Canada wanted him from the beginning LTRT.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/17/doc-khadr.html

Canada asked the United States not to send former child soldier Omar Khadr to Guantanamo after he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, according to a letter released Thursday.

In the document dated September 2002, Ottawa argued that the prison camp in Cuba was an "inappropriate" place for Khadr, a Canadian citizen, because he was just 15 years old at the time.

The letter was submitted in court filings by defence lawyers who have urged the Canadian government to demand Khadr's return from Guantanamo Bay, where he is expected to face a military trial by this summer on charges of killing a U.S. soldier.

The Khadr family's reputation is inspired mostly by comments Omar Khadr's mother has made since her son was captured. Maha Elsamnah, who lives in Toronto, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in a 2004 documentary that she would be proud to have her sons die as a "martyr." And she has admitted to thinking, 'Let them have it' when the planes hit the World Trade Center in 2001, according to the Toronto Star.

Reached at her Toronto home last week, Elsamnah said she no longer associates with al Qaeda, and that her time in Afghanistan was spent working with orphans and poor mothers.

"We had a cause then," Elsamnah said, referring to the period when her husband raised their children alongside bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s. "We are different now. We are human. I don't like violence. I hate violence."

"I hope Omar is a good boy now, a good man," she said. "When he comes back home, we are dreaming of having a farm, [where we can] raise our own animals, far away from pressure of the media and the pressure of the community who are so confused about our life."

She said she "just wants to be a mother." Omar's brother Abdullah Khadr is being held in Canada on a U.S. extradition warrant, accused of supplying weapons to al Qaeda. Another brother, Karim Khadr, was paralyzed from the waist down in the same gun battle that killed his father in 2003, Omar Khadr's defense attorney confirmed. Karim Khadr is living in Canada, the attorney said.

The eldest sibling, Zaynab Khadr, has been investigated for involvement in terrorism by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but she has never been charged, her brother's attorneys confirmed. The RCMP told CNN its policy is not to comment on any ongoing or concluded investigations.

She recently ended an 18-day hunger strike in support of her brother and told CNN in an e-mail that Omar Khadr only wants "to return to Canada, where he was born and spent much of his childhood, and become an 'ordinary Canadian' once again."

Jugomugo wrote:I don't really see any difference between him and an American soldier. Since when is fighting invading forces a crime? Can we jail Americans when someone actually attacks us?

floridafun wrote:

Jugomugo wrote:I don't really see any difference between him and an American soldier. Since when is fighting invading forces a crime? Can we jail Americans when someone actually attacks us?

exactly! funny how if they become martyrs FOR american actions they are heroes..but if they become martyrs AGAINST american actions they are terrorists.

LTRT wrote:

floridafun wrote:

Jugomugo wrote:I don't really see any difference between him and an American soldier. Since when is fighting invading forces a crime? Can we jail Americans when someone actually attacks us?

exactly! funny how if they become martyrs FOR american actions they are heroes..but if they become martyrs AGAINST american actions they are terrorists.

Does that mean you have a spare room for him when he gets out?

LTRT wrote:

floridafun wrote:

Jugomugo wrote:I don't really see any difference between him and an American soldier. Since when is fighting invading forces a crime? Can we jail Americans when someone actually attacks us?

exactly! funny how if they become martyrs FOR american actions they are heroes..but if they become martyrs AGAINST american actions they are terrorists.

Does that mean you have a spare room for him when he gets out?

floridafun wrote:who likely, like many soldiers/military, in the beginning probably thought they were being patriotic and serving their nation and their lord and savior.