GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Alleged ex-teen terrorist Omar Khadr said Monday he rejected a U.S. deal that offered him a "Get out of Guantanamo card" in five years if he admitted to committing war crimes in Afghanistan as a 15-year-old.
"I will not take any plea offer because it will give excuse to the government for torturing and abusing me when I was a child," said Khadr, now 23. He then declared the Pentagon's war court a political tool, fired his American defense team and said he would boycott his Aug. 10 trial rather than mount a defense.
The revelation comes as the Obama administration is struggling to close down the prison camps that Monday held 181 detainees.
Had the plea deal been sealed, Guantanamo's youngest and last Western captive would have returned to his native Canada in 2015 to serve out a sentence of up to 30 years.
Last week, the al Arabiya satellite news channel reported that Osama bin Laden's cook signed a deal that sends him home to his native Sudan in 2012.
"I'm representing myself and I'm boycotting," said Khadr who has grown from an adolescent captured near death in Afghanistan into manhood in U.S. military custody. He wore the white prison camp uniform of a compliant captive.
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