Obama's Delayed Gitmo Plan Upsets Rights Groups

President-elect urged to stop tribunals before child soldier's trial
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2009 2:39 AM CST
Obama's Delayed Gitmo Plan Upsets Rights Groups
This is an undated photo of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, a Canadian, taken before he was imprisoned in 2002 at the age of 15.    (AP Photo/The Canadian Press)

Human rights groups are worried about Barack Obama's plan to wait over 100 days before closing the Guantanamo Bay detenion center, reports the Miami Herald. Activists fear that Obama plans to keep the system of military tribunals going and are especially concerned about the upcoming trial of prisoner Omar Khadr, who was captured in Afghanistan when he was only 15.

Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyer believes his Canadian-born client should be repatriated to his home country and thinks Obama should freeze the war courts before the trial, scheduled at the end of the month. "If he does not act in the first six days of his administration, he will be the first president in US history to preside over the trial of a child soldier for war crimes," the lawyer warned.
(More Barack Obama stories.)

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