Defense lawyers for convicted "child soldier" Omar Khadr on Wednesday tried to discredit a forensic psychiatrist's claim that the man now considered "al Qaida royalty" is likely to re-enter a life of jihadism.
Their efforts took up most of a day in which the seven member jury that will decide Khadr's sentence also heard about the heroics of the American Khadr killed with a 2002 grenade toss.
Dr. Michael Welner said Khadr, now 24, totally lacks remorse for killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, wouldn't speak to psychologists during eight years of detention in Guantanamo Bay, and maintains close ties to his family, who continue to support al Qaida.
Khadr's lawyers, however, suggested Welner spoke more from the controversial work of a third-party psychologist rather than his direct assessment of Khadr.
Welner acknowledged relied in part on interviews with Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who drew conclusions about Muslims' integration into society after studying Muslim inmates at a juvenile facility in Copenhagen.
The testimony came two days after Khadr pleaded guilty to five terrorist charges. The plea made him the first "child soldier" since World War Two to be convicted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile.
On Tuesday, the jury made up of U.S. military officers began hearing testimony to recommend Khadr's sentence, which may be more lenient but not tougher than a plea deal already worked out.
The plea deal reportedly capped his sentence at eight years in addition to the eight years he has already spent at the Guantanamo detention camp. After another year at Guantanamo, he may serve the rest of his term in Canada.
The sentencing hearing opened with the reading of a stipulation agreement in which Khadr admitted he was out to kill "a lot of Americans" as a teen terrorist in 2002. The agreement describes the life of Toronto, Canada-born Khadr, his al Qaida training and his family ties to Osama bin Laden and details of the grenade attack that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer in July 2002.
On Tuesday, when Welner first testified, he called Khadr "full of rage."
Khadr has shown no interest in changing his radical views on Islam and has no real remorse for throwing the grenade that killed speer and partially blinded another soldier, Welner said.
"He is very angry about being in custody," he told the jurors.
Welner said he did not share all of Sennels views.
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He said his opinion that Khadr was a risk for future violence was "not because he is devout, not because he is Muslim, but because he is a person who has a history of murder."
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After Welner's testimony, Speers was described to jurors as the "hear and soul" of his unit.
Six days before Khadr lobbed the grenade, Speers had run into a minefield and rescued two injured Afghan children.
"Chris risked his own life and his opportunity to go back to his children because there were two Afghan children who had been injured in an active minefield," a colleague and friend identified only as Sergeant Major Y testified. "Chris went into that active minefield and rescued those children."
Speer was posthumously awarded the Soldier's Medal, which commemorates acts of heroism, he said, stopping his testimony several times to breathe deeply and hold back tears.
The incident occurred on July 21, 2002, six days before Speer's unit engaged in a firefight at a compound where the then-15-year-old Khadr lived and worked with a group of al Qaida bomb-makers.
Speer died 12 days later at a military hospital in Germany.
"The loss was absolutely catastrophic, it was immediate and it was long-lasting," said Captain E, who was once Speer's boss and later replaced him in the unit in Afghanistan.
Defense lawyers are expected to portray Khadr as co-operative and suggest he is young enough that rehabilitation will be more effective than incarceration.
Khadr is the son of a dead al Qaida financier and was raised in what one sibling called "an al Qaida family" now living in the Toronto area.