Peter Brownback - Dismissed Charges Against Omar Khadr

Dismissed Charges Against Omar Khadr

On June 4, 2007, in a move the BBC described as a "stunning blow" to the Bush Presidency's detainee policy, Brownback dismissed all charges against Canadian youth Omar Khadr.

In the Summer of 2006 the United States Supreme Court overturned the then current version of the Guantanamo military commission on constitutional grounds. The Supreme Court had ruled that the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to institute military commissions. The Supreme Court however, did rule that the United States Congress did have the constitutional authority to set up military commissions.

In the fall of 2006 the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which authorized military commissions similar to those the Supreme Court overturned, to try "unlawful enemy combatants".

However, Brownback and Captain Keith J. Allred, ruled that since Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan's Combatant Status Review Tribunals had not determined that they were "unlawful enemy combatants", but merely "enemy combatants", the commissions lacked jurisdiction to try them.

None of the remaining Guantanamo captives have had a "competent tribunal", like the AR-190-8 Tribunal, make a determination as to whether they broke any of the laws of war that would strip them of the protections of Geneva Conventions Prisoner of War status.