Omar Khadr, in a courtroom illustration from Guantanamo Bay, may be sent to prison in Canada Convicted militant Omar Khadr was proud of having killed a US soldier with a grenade, a military tribunal has heard.
Khadr, who pleaded guilty at Guantanamo Bay to terror charges on Monday, also told his US interrogators where to find bombs he had planted in Afghanistan.
The revelations came during the sentencing phase of his tribunal.
The Canadian is the fifth Guantanamo inmate to be convicted. Caught in 2002 aged 15, he reportedly may face up to eight years in jail under a plea deal.
The US war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre was told Tuesday that Khadr, now 24, consoled himself during hard times in his years of imprisonment with recollections of the 2002 grenade attack that killed a US soldier in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.
“Khadr indicated that when he would get pissed off with the guards at Bagram, he would recall his killing of the US soldier and it would make him feel good,” the court heard in Khadr’s stipulation of guilt.
However, using information gleaned from interrogations of the young prisoner, US forces were able safely to disarm 10 roadside bombs Khadr had admitted to planting, the court learned.
Khadr pleaded guilty to five charges against him, including conspiracy with al-Qaeda terrorists and murder in violation of the laws of war.
Khadr’s defenders say he was a child soldier forced by his family to fight. He grew up in Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan and is the son of an alleged al-Qaeda official who was killed in 2003.
They say he was a boy intimidated by “bad men” who ordered him into battle.
The US is the first country since World War II to prosecute a person at a war crimes tribunal for actions allegedly committed as a juvenile.
A seven-member military panel is to determine Khadr’s sentence.
According to media reports, he faces up to eight more years in prison in addition to the eight he has already served. He could also be returned to serve his sentence in his native Canada.
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