By Jane Sutton GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. military is reconvening a Guantanamo war crimes tribunal in a third attempt to try a young Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan. Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Toronto native who has spent a quarter of his life at the detention and interrogation camp at the U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba, will face the tribunal again on Thursday. The war court is reconvening just a month before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a third challenge to the Bush administration's power to indefinitely hold and try foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo. The high court ruled against the administration in the two earlier cases. Critics say it is time to recognize that the Guantanamo experiment -- the camp was set up soon after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States six years ago -- has failed but the Bush administration has said the tribunals are necessary to try dangerous men who are not part of any national army. So far, only one prisoner has been convicted in the war crimes trials and that was the result of a plea bargain that produced a nine-month sentence for Australian captive David Hicks. The military's chief prosecutor, the third to hold the post since the tribunals first convened in 2004, recently resigned in a dispute over what he called political interference. Many of the other military lawyers originally assigned to the tribunals have retired or moved on to other jobs as the trials have sputtered amid legal challenges and then reconvened under new rules. Army Col. Steve David, who took over as chief defense counsel six weeks ago, said the world is watching to see how the United States applies the rule of law and fundamental due process. "The question is, is this the way we want to do business, is this the way we want to be known, is this our legacy?" David said. 15 WHEN CAPTURED Khadr was 15 and badly wounded when he was captured at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002. He is accused of throwing grenades that killed U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and wounded other coalition forces. Described by the U.S. military as the son of an al Qaeda financier, he is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying on U.S. military convoys in Afghanistan. Khadr, who faces life in prison if convicted, is the last citizen of a Western nation among the 320 Guantanamo captives accused of links to al Qaeda or associated Islamist militant groups. He was first charged in November 2005 and brought before a tribunal two months later. The charges were dismissed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that President George W. Bush lacked authority to set up the alternative court system. New charges were filed after the U.S. Congress enacted a law establishing the current version of the tribunals. But a military judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, threw out those charges in June on grounds that Khadr had not been designated an "unlawful enemy combatant" as the new law required. Brownback said the distinction was vital because international law required other types of trial for lawful combatants. A newly convened military appeals court reinstated the charges and said that Brownback himself had authority to decide whether Khadr was an "unlawful combatant." Brownback will hear evidence on that issue at Thursday's court session. But he said he would not consider defense arguments that the tribunal system violates U.S. and international law and should not apply to acts allegedly committed by a minor. A U.S. appeals court in Washington declined on Tuesday to intervene. "The practical effect of (the) decision is that Omar, as an alleged former child soldier, will be found to be an unlawful enemy combatant without even having the opportunity to contest whether the designation violates international law, which it clearly does," Khadr's lead military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, said in a statement. (Editing by Frances Kerry)
