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Children in Armed Conflict

Children in Armed Conflict . Guantanamo Bay. Omar Khadr. "Does anyone believe that juveniles should not be prosecuted for violent offences?" Prosecutor Jeff Groharing asked them.

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Children in Armed Conflict

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  1. Children in Armed Conflict

  2. Guantanamo Bay

  3. Omar Khadr

  4. "Does anyone believe that juveniles should not be prosecuted for violent offences?" Prosecutor Jeff Groharing asked them. • "Does anyone feel the accused should be held to a different standard because he was 15 years old at the time of the alleged offences?" • None said they held those beliefs.

  5. Who is Omar Khadr ? • Canadian-born citizen was a child of fifteen when was captured and charged with killing a US soldier with a grenade in a gunfight in Afghanistan. • First child to be tried for a crime of war since the Nuremburg trials and certainly the first child soldier prosecuted for war crimes in US history • He was the youngest prisoner held in extrajudicial detention by the US at Guantanamo, one of two men at the facility who were taken in to US custody as juveniles 4

  6. The Khadr effect?

  7. Antecedents (1) • In the mid-1990s, Omar’s father, Ahmed Khadr, was arrested following the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan accused of financially aiding conspirators (). Then • Released by intervention of Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. Years later it was proved that senior Khadr had close ties to Osama bin Laden’s family. • Canadian Government was horrified by its complicity in the release of the elder Khadr in a post-9/11 context . It refused to hear requests for repatriation or extradition in the younger Khadr’s case

  8. The Offence • July 2002: shot 3 times accused to murder an America soldier • October 2002: transfer to Guantanamo Bay • November 2005: Charged with murder, conspiracy, And aiding the enemy • Evidence against him is based on a series of confessions Omar allegedly made at the age of 15 while in U.S. custody at the military base in Bagram and later in Guantanamo.

  9. Sentence • Khadr was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a US military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay in 2010 on war crimes charges. • October 2010: pleads guilty to throw the grenade which killed the American soldier • As part of his plea deal, his sentence was limited to eight years, and under the deal, he became eligible to return to Canada last October, before being eventually returned at the end of September 2012.

  10. UN Position • U.N. calls defendant a 'child soldier,' denounced the Pentagon's trial of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, was a violation of international legal norms and "may endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world" as proceedings violate international legal norms "Since World War II, no child has been prosecuted for a war crime," RadhikaCoomaraswamy, U.N.'s special representative for Children and Armed Conflict • Sharp criticism from the U.N. official created yet another public relations dilemma for Pentagon officials as they prepare to try Khadr, a Canadian citizen who has spent nearly a third of his life at Guantanamo, in the first military commission trial during Barack Obama's presidency. • The statement was made on the day that a military judge began picking a jury to hear charges that the defendant committed murder and attempted murder in violation of the "law of war" for allegedly hurling a hand grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic in Afghanistan eight years ago. 4

  11. Videos about Omar Khadr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCBKnGA9YaI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=lSvNHgxpngw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g62oIkzvh0&feature=endscreen&NR=1

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