U.S. says no to U.N. request to attend Khadr trial

Source: thestar.com

The Pentagon has denied a request to send a United Nations observer to a hearing for Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr a month after a UN representative raised concerns about the Canadian's trial.

Khadr's military lawyers had asked that a representative for Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations' Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, be given access to the U.S. base in Cuba for Khadr's hearing next month.

Coomaraswamy raised Khadr's case during a meeting last month with the U.S. Secretary of State's top legal advisor, John Bellinger. She was concerned about the international precedent that would be set of a war crimes trial concerning "alleged acts committed when he was a child," her spokesperson Laurence Gerard said.

Various court observers have been granted access to Khadr's hearings in the past, including those from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Canada's Department for Foreign Affairs.



Read more: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/296777

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