GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A military judge threatened Thursday to suspend the terror trial of Canadian Omar Khadr unless the prison camp releases a detailed log of the Toronto-born captive's treatment in detention.
Khadr, now 21, is accused of throwing a hand grenade in a July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic. He was 15.
His attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, says the log might reveal details about his client's detention here that could help a defense effort to limit evidence at his anticipated late summer trial.
At a hearing, the military judge, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, agreed that the defense should get a copy of an electronic log that tracked Khadr's life since arriving at this remote Navy base Oct. 28, 2002.
''I find that this is relevant because it shows the day-by-day, hour-by-hour track of Mr. Khadr throughout his detention here at Guantánamo Bay,'' the judge said.
He set a 5 p.m. May 22 deadline for authorities to turn over the log or find a remedy for the standoff over access to the details of Khadr's confinement.
''If not,'' Brownback said, ``we stop.''
Brownback is believed to be the first war court judge to threaten to ''abate'' -- or freeze -- the proceedings until the prison camp's commanders turn over evidence.
Eventually, an extended freeze could lead to dismissal of some if not all of the charges. Khadr faces multiple charges, including murder as a war crime and providing material support for terror.
Judges in other cases have been grappling with motions that seek to protest detainee circumstances at the razor-wire-ringed prison camps -- just miles away, under separate Pentagon management.
The hearing took place in the original military commissions courtroom, on a hill overlooking Camp Justice, the nickname for the Pentagon's so-called expeditionary legal complex.
A day earlier, court staff retreated from the showcase $12 million facility following a series of technical glitches, including a power outage, in a first test use of a high-tech snoop-proof court created for the trial of six alleged 9/11 conspirators.
The log that the Khadr defense team is seeking would reveal information about Khadr's treatment at this offshore Navy base, where the teen grew into bushy-bearded, six-foot-two adulthood.
A statement from the prison camp's command staff, called the Joint Task Force, or JTF, said late Thursday that the commanders were ''working closely with the prosecutors to redact the records for release. This entails a significant effort to redact information which would put JTF personnel at risk.'' The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the risk.
The military judge noted that the Pentagon defense lawyers are cleared to see secret information.
Defense lawyers argue that Khadr, the son of an alleged senior al Qaeda financier, has been repeatedly mistreated to reinforce a confession he gave while in detention at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. They argue he was coerced into a confession soon after his capture, when injured with two bullet wounds in his back, and punished here if he didn't stick to that first account.
In one complaint, rejected by the Pentagon, Khadr's lawyers say the teen was turned into a human mop -- doused with Pine Sol after he urinated on himself while in shackles, then dragged on the floor of an interrogation booth to wipe the floor.
Commanders have consistently denied that Khadr has been mistreated. They describe their prison, created to hold suspected terrorists, as safe and humane.
Wednesday, another detainee captured as a teen, Mohammed Jawad of Afghanistan, claimed he was punished at the prison for refusing to cooperate at his trial.
In March, guards dragged him from his cell, said his lawyer, Air Force Reserves Maj. David J.R. Frakt. He was brought to court in shackles.
Frakt asked Brownback Wednesday whether he had the power to intervene in Jawad's treatment. The judge hedged.
Frakt, a law professor in civilian life, later said he wasn't sure, either. ''I believe that some court should have some supervisory power over the administration of the detention facility,'' he said. ``Up until now, it has been an empire unto itself.''
