Canadian detainee’s terror case to proceed

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Tuesday refused to block military commission proceedings against a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Lawyers for Omar Khadr had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to halt the case, in which Khadr is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a Special Forces soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan.

Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, also faces conspiracy and other charges.

This week, a judge at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba will decide whether Khadr was an unlawful enemy combatant and subject to trial, or simply an enemy combatant and therefore outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

President Bush created the system of military commissions after the Sept. 11 attacks, but no one has ever been tried by the panels, which have been the focus of legal challenges.

The one-sentence denial was handed down by judges David Sentelle, A. Raymond Randolph and Janice Rogers Brown. Sentelle was appointed by President Reagan, Brown by President Bush and Randolph by President George H.W. Bush.