William Glaberson reports that defense attorneys representing a 21-year-old being held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “have been ordered by a military judge not to tell their client – or anyone else – the identity of witnesses against him” in the prisoner’s upcoming war crimes trial.

Attorneys point out that this “would hamper their ability to build an adequate defense because they cannot ask their client or anyone else about prosecution witnesses, making it difficult to test the veracity of testimony.” Duh.

Commander Kuebler’s e-mail messages were filled with assertions that his client’s rights were being violated and with arguments that Mr. Khadr should be afforded the lenient treatment that has been accorded child fighters in some other wars. He ridiculed “the absurdity of characterizing an alleged former child soldier” as a dangerous terrorist and said the prosecution was ignoring rules assuring that detainees charged with war crimes are entitled to public trials.

In an e-mail message on Oct. 11 to the judge and the prosecutors, Commander Kuebler argued that it was notable that the entire discussion of whether witnesses would be permitted to shield their identities was being conducted without anyone in the public or the press able to observe the arguments. “The manner in which this is being dealt with (i.e., off the record, via e-mail),” he wrote, “creates an added level of difficulty by making it appear that the government is trying to keep the secrecy of the proceedings a secret itself.”

Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was 15 at the time (and has thus been held for five years already) is being closely watched because it may be the first Guantánamo prosecution to go to trial.

He was captured in a compound near Khost that was surrounded by US special forces. The Americans called in a devastating air strike – no survivors were expected.

Khadr survived and allegedly threw a grenade, which injured Sgt. Christopher Speer and led to his death, and injured three other members of the squad. Omar himself was shot three times, and left nearly blind in one eye.

He is among the youngest prisoners held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantánamo Bay camps – and the only Canadian.

On November 7, 2005, Khadr and nine other Guantanamo inmates were charged to be tried by “Military Commission” but the commission was struck down as unlawful by the US Supreme Court in 2006. After the MCA was signed in October 2006, new charges were sworn against Khadr on February 2, 2007. Khadr petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the legality of the military commission and his detention, but this request was denied.

Sergeant Heather Cerveny, the paralegal for Colby Vokey, Khadr’s military lawyer, issued an affidavit reporting that off-duty Guantanamo guards had bragged to her of abusing detainees. Both then were slapped with a gag order.

On April 5, 2006 Khadr read out a note that said: “Excuse me Mr. Judge,.. I’m being punished for exercising my right and being co-operative in participating in this military commission. For that, I say with my respect to you and everybody else here, that I’m boycotting these procedures until I be treated humanely and fair.”

In November, Colonel Brownback did not exercise the authority granted to him by the Court of Review to make a ruling as to whether Khadr was or was not an unlawful combatant – because the Defense had recently learned the Prosecution had exculpatory evidence that they had not chosen to share.

Khadr’s lawyers have alleged that Khadr was abused while he was held at Camp X-Ray (in Guantanamo) and should have been treated as a minor.

He was kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time, denied adequate medical treatment, subjected to “short shackling” and left bound in uncomfortable “stress positions” until he soiled himself.

In a press conference on January 16, 2005, Khadr’s lawyers described how Khadr’s captors took Khadr’s still bound body and wiped his hair and clothes in his urine and feces.

Is this the best case they’ve got?