SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – The American military filed a murder charge Tuesday against the Canadian son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, who was captured at age 15 in Afghanistan and has spent almost five years at the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Omar Khadr, now 20, allegedly joined the Taliban in Afghanistan and threw a grenade that killed an American Green Beret soldier in July 2002. He was captured as he lay wounded after that firefight, at an Al Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan.

The American military charged him with murder, attempted murder, providing support to terrorism, conspiracy and spying under rules for military trials adopted last year and first used to try David Hicks, the Australian sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty.

The military said the Toronto-born Khadr would be arraigned within 30 days. He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Mr. Khadr’s Pentagon-appointed defense attorney, Marine Lieutenant Colonel. Colby Vokey, said America would become the first country in modern history to try a war crimes suspect who was a child at the time of the alleged violations. The conspiracy charge is based on acts allegedly committed when Mr. Khadr was younger than 10, Colonel Vokey said.

The attorney urged Canada and America to negotiate a “political resolution” of the case to spare Mr. Khadr from a guaranteed conviction by “one of the greatest show trials on earth.”

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

“This was, in fact, a child,” Ms. Musa said. “From the beginning, he was never treated in accordance with his age. He was treated like any adult taken into custody.”

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, said Mr. Khadr must be held accountable.

“The Defense Department will continue to uphold the law and bring unlawful enemy combatants to justice through the military commissions process,” he said.

The American military said Mr. Khadr hurled a grenade that killed Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., and wounded Army Sergeant Layne Morris, of West Jordan, Utah. The charges say those acts were carried out “in violation of the law of war,” but did not elaborate.

Speer’s widow and Sergeant Morris filed a civil lawsuit against Mr. Khadr and his father. In February, a judge awarded them $102.6 million.

The military alleges that Mr. Khadr also conducted surveillance of American troops and planted land mines targeting American convoys.

Mr. Khadr allegedly received a month of basic training from al-Qaida in June 2002 that included the use of rocket-propelled grenades, rifles, pistols and explosives, according to the charge sheet signed by Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions.

Several of Mr. Khadr’s family members have been accused of ties to Islamic extremists. His Egyptian-born father, Ahmad Said al-Khadr, was killed in Pakistan in 2003 alongside senior Al Qaeda operatives. Canada is holding Mr. Khadr’s brother Abdullah on an American extradition warrant accusing him of supplying weapons to Al Qaeda.

Another brother, Abdul Karim, said his sibling has said in his letters home that he does not believe he can receive a fair trial at Guantanamo.

“It’s not good but the Americans were going to do it eventually. They’ve been charging people for no reason for so long. It doesn’t really matter,” the younger Mr. Khadr told the AP in a phone interview from the family home in Toronto.

In March, the military tribunal at Guantanamo sentenced Hicks to nine months in prison after he pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism – the first conviction at an American war crimes trial since World War II. Under an agreement with the court, he will serve his sentence in an Australian prison, but must remain silent about any alleged abuse while in custody.

Prosecutors say they plan to charge as many as 80 of the 385 men being held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The Supreme Court in June struck down the previous military tribunal system at Guantanamo as unconstitutional. Congress then passed a law establishing a new military tribunal system.

Dennis Edney, a Canadian lawyer for Mr. Khadr’s family, said the new tribunal system which allows coerced and hearsay evidence “provides Mr. Khadr with almost no chance of proving his innocence.”

“The aim is to provide a showcase to justify the U.S. administration decision to arrest Mr. Khadr and other men like him in the first place,” Mr. Edney said.

The high court is now considering a challenge to the revised tribunals. Some members of Congress have vowed to repeal the law that limits detainees’ access to civilian courts.

___

On the Net:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2007/KhadrReferral.pdf