The trial of Gitmo detainee Omar Khadr for the murder of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer which he was alleged to have committed in Afghanistan in 2002 has been through a number of dramatic setbacks, from Khadr boycotting the trial to his lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, collapsing in the courtroom a couple of months ago. The judge had recently ruled that Khadr's confessions, given after abusive treatment including an implied threat of rape, would be admissible.
The circumstances of the trial were always terrible optics for an administration trying to present the military commissions as serving the interests of justice: Trying someone for war crimes for allegedly killing a member of an enemy force on the battlefield when the accused was 15 doesn't look much like due process to the rest of the world. Charlie Savage recently reported that some administration officials shared these concerns, and according to Al-Arabiya's Muna Shikaki, a settlement has been reached in the case that will allow Khadr, a Canadian national, to serve his sentence in his home country:
Sources tell Al Arabiya that the Pentagon was under pressure to accept the plea deal which comes less than a month before the midterm elections and saves the US government the embarrassment of having to try a detainee who was a 15 years old when he was said to have committed his alleged war crimes.
If true, Khadr's would be the fifth military-commissions trial to be brought to a conclusion. That probably won't silence the administration's critics, like Liz Cheney, since the Khadr case is something of a flash point for them. The presence of Jennifer Daskal at the Justice Department, was something of a catalyst for the "al-Qaeda Seven" smear. Daskal had opposed trying Khadr when she worked at Human Rights Watch. I suspect that both the plea deal itself, and the news that Khadr will not be serving his sentence at Gitmo will be touted as proof of the administration's willingness to go easy on terrorists.
Savage counters that Shikaki's report is preliminary. But if this report is accurate, the administration will have spared both themselves and the country the rather substantial embarrassment of being the first country in modern history to try someone for war crimes allegedly committed while they were a child.
