Jury selection has begun in the military trial of Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee and only westerner remaining at Guantanamo. He is also a Canadian citizen. Arrested at age 15, Khadr is now 23. According to Carol Rosenberg, correspondent for The Miami Herald, Khadr has grown from a boy to a man at Guantanamo.
Khadr’s defense argues that he was a child soldier, conscripted into a force not of his volition and that he should have been treated as a victim and been given rehabilitation. However that has not been the position of the Bush or the Obama administration. In addition, his confessions taken from him as a teenager, are being permitted in this trial.
Carol Rosenberg is at the trial in Guantanamo; she explains whether there are differences between these military courts under the Bush and Obama, and what to expect as the trial gets underway.