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U.S. Supreme Court asked to stop trial

The war-crimes trial of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay should be put on hold until the courts rule on the legality of the hearings, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer says in an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

TORONTO — The war-crimes trial of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay should be put on hold until the courts rule on the legality of the hearings, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer says in an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The filing this week by Lt. Col. Jon Jackson argues that Khadr — a Canadian citizen — has a right not to be tried by a system that might very well turn out to be illegal.

“The potential harm to (Khadr) is enormous — subjection to a trial on a potential life sentence that is entirely illegitimate and should not even have been charged, much less tried,” the petition states.

Khadr’s war-crimes trial is slated to start next week, more than eight years after the crimes he is alleged to have committed as a 15 year old.

The son of a purported al-Qaida financier, the Toronto-born Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed an American special forces soldier in Afghanistan in July 2002 following a four-hour assault on a compound.

In March, Khadr asked the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia to throw out the Military Commissions Act of 2009 under which he is being tried.

The act was brought in by President Barack Obama’s administration after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed an earlier version illegal.

Given that the Appeals Court has yet to act on Khadr’s request, the Supreme Court should order the lower court to rule before he faces trial, or decide the case for themselves, the new petition states.

Calling it a “sad truth” that the commissions are “discriminatory,” Jackson noted they apply only to non-U.S. citizens.

Khadr, he said in a statement, would get “second-class justice.”

“This kind of discrimination is something we cannot stand for as a country,” Jackson said.

Given that several accused face military commissions, determining their legitimacy is of “pressing importance” because all the cases could end up being overturned as unconstitutional, the petition states.

Jackson said a delay in Khadr’s trial before a military jury would cause “minimal” harm to the government given that it has been responsible for delays over the past five years.

In January 2009, Obama promised to close the infamous naval prison and end the widely condemned military commissions instituted by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“Omar is a former child soldier being prosecuted in the fourth version of the Bush Administration’s broken system,” Jackson said.

“But our politicians want to pass the buck. No one wants to stand up for what is right.”

Legal and human-rights experts and groups around the world have condemned the military commissions and Khadr’s prosecution in particular.

Khadr is the lone westerner and youngest captive at Guantanamo, where more than 180 foreign detainees remain.

At a pre-trial hearing last month, Khadr blasted the process as a sham in which he could not possibly receive justice.