At Guantánamo, the U.S. military arraigned the Canadian citizen Omar Khadr on war crimes charges Thursday. Khadr has been in U.S. custody since he was 15 years old. His military attorney, Lt. Commander William Kuebler, said the military commission is unfairly set up against prisoners.

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler: “This is a process that is not designed to be fair; it is designed to produce convictions, and it is designed around a specific set of cases for the government to convict people based on evidence that it couldn’t use to convict them in any other court. That’s why we have military commissions. And so I don’t expect a fair trial for Omar Khadr.”

During Thursday’s hearing, it was revealed there is a secret government witness who might be able to help Khadr’s defense. Khadr’s military attorney criticized the United States for holding a child at Guantánamo.

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler: “Omar Khadr was 15 years old when he allegedly engaged in these events. If he were anybody else, we’d call him a child soldier, and we’d assume that if he did everything that he did, that he is deserving of recognition as a child soldier — rehabilitation, sympathy, compassion. We would try to reintegrate him in to society. Because he is Ahmed Khadr’s son and because the United States government viewed him as an intelligence asset to be exploited, he did not receive that treatment.”

No trial date has been set for Omar Khadr.