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Guantanamo critic removed from jury
A serving US Army officer who told a court he agreed with President Barack Obama that the Guantanamo Bay prison camps should be closed down has been removed from a jury hearing allegations of war crimes against a former child soldier.
Prosecutors claimed the unnamed lieutenant colonel had "preconceived" views that might harm their case. But the exclusion of the officer, who had been called to sit as a juror in the controversial military commission trial of Omar Khadr at the US naval base in Cuba, has only added to the perception of prejudice.
Khadr is accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade and helping to make IEDs to be used against American forces when he was 15 years old in Afghanistan. Among the seven jurors remaining on the panel are officers who have lost close friends or colleagues fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. One had a friend killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon. A female officer who was cleared to serve on the trial jury told the court she was awarded the Purple Heart for bravery after being wounded leading her soldiers into a firefight with Iraqi or al-Qa'ida militants in which two subordinates were killed.
During the jury selection process, the army officer–who described himself as a military academic who also taught soldiers–was asked by prosecutor Jeff Groharing as to whether he had any views about Guantanamo.
He replied: "I agree with the President the detention facility should be closed down." He said that it "eroded America's reputation in the world," and that after speaking to Europeans and academics he backed the views of the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the former Attorney General of the UK, Lord Goldsmith QC, who had both condemned the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo.
He said he thought that some earlier policies had lost America its "reputation for being a beacon of freedom."