Detained (&disappeared) at age 15 in Afghanistan

The story of Omar Khadr, a kid who was captured "on the battlefield" at age 15 in Afghanistan, has been of great interest to Canadians and child-rights activists.



For the past 4 years, the Canadian of Egyptian descent has been encarcerated in Camp Iguana (the juvenile section of Guantantamo) where Americans claim he received preferential treatment due to his young age. When he arrived there at age 16, however, the US refused to treat him as a minor under international law.

The Toronto Star feature on Khadr bends over backwards to achieve balance, interviewing some of the American soldiers who captured the boy after a firefight in Afghanistan. (His father was an Al-Qaeda fundraiser and Bin Laden confidant who was finally killed in 2003.)

The story is worth reading in its entirety.

Khadr faces arraignment by military tribunal today, January 11, after spending almost a fifth of his young life in custody with no notion of his fate.