A military judge dropped a legal bombshell by dismissing the charges against Omar Khadr, leaving his future in limbo and rocking an already embattled terror system established by the U.S. administration.
Monday's surprise ruling doesn't put 20-year-old Khadr any closer to a trial or release, but the decision could derail the heavily criticized terror tribunals.
On Monday, the judge dismissed the charges against the Canadian native, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for five years, and the charges brought against Yemen's Salmi Ahmed Hamdam, who was accused of being al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's chauffeur.
Khadr had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel in 2004. But because he was not classified as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant," Army Col. Peter Brownback said he had no choice but to throw the case out.
None of the detainees held at the prison have been deemed "unlawful."
"It's been five years now and it's just been one bump in the road after another and it's another development that shows the system is unworkable," Kristine Huskey, former defence lawyer for Khadr, told Canada AM from Washington on Tuesday.
Khadr and Hamdam were two of only three people detained at Guantanamo Bay to be charged.
While the Pentagon says the decision is only a matter of semantics, the ruling will furthur complicate the efforts of the U.S. administration to try the other 380 terror suspects held at the prison.
If detainees are deemed "lawful" they are entitled to prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, a status that would ensure the same treatment as U.S. soldiers. Changing detainee status to "unlawful" would require a time-consuming overhaul of the entire system.
"Canada really needs to step up and put some pressure and say try him in a civilian court or bring him back to Canada and have him investigated there and tried there," Huskey said.
In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs officials said they were reviewing the situation, but had no other immediate comment.
The decision not only leaves Khadr's future in the balance but also suspends justice for the victim's of the 2002 battle in Afghanistan.
The son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, Khadr was accused of killing U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002.
Khadr's lawyers have tried to foster Canadian support saying he was merely a child soldier, a victim of his father's rule.
Sgt. (Ret.) Layne Morris, who was blinded in the firefight and has been anxiously anticipating Khadr's trial, says his life is now "on hold."
"I feel like I have a responsibility to the military institution and my fellow soldiers, some of whom have left behind widows and children, that I've got to follow this through," Morris told Canada AM from Salt Lake City, Utah on Tuesday.
Huskey says a trial for Khadr and other detainees is necessary to ensure due process and justice is served for the victims and those accused.
"If justice is to be done for Omar and Sgt. Morris, he should be tried by a process we all agree is one that has due process and one that will bring justice for both the victims and the person being tried."
"You can't have people detained indefinitely, accused of being terrorists or accused of committing these war crimes and never getting a trial. That's not fair to Sgt. Morris and it's not fair to Omar and his family," Huskey said.
Khadr became the first juvenile to be charged with war crimes in modern history.
