The Pentagon yesterday announced charges against a Canadian detainee at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accusing him of killing a US Army medic as a war crime.

A Pentagon announcement said Omar Khadr, 20, is to face trial for five charges in "a non-capital case," meaning the Bush administration is not seeking to execute the young man who has been held for nearly five years at the remote U.S. base in southeast Cuba.

Charges include murder in violation of the law of war; attempted murder in violation of the law of war; conspiracy; providing material support for terrorism and spying.

Defense lawyers claim that a Khadr trial would be the first modern war-crime prosecution of a juvenile.

He was 15 at the time of the alleged crimes.

"Khadr will be arraigned within 30 days of the service of charges," the Pentagon said in a statement, indicating that neither the young man nor his U.S. attorneys had yet been served with them.

The Toronto-born captive is also apparently the sole remaining citizen of a Western ally nation who would be charged before the war court.

Last month, Australian David Hicks, 31, traded a guilty plea ona sentence of material support for terrorism for a nine-month sentence, mostly in his homeland -- and freedom by New Year's Eve.

Khadr's alleged crimes stem from the U.S. invasion itself.

He was inside a suspected al-Qaida compound in July 2002 near Khost, Afghanistan, when U.S. Special Forces assaulted it.

The Pentagon alleges that Khadr threw a hand grenade that killed a unit medic, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., and partially blinded another American soldier.

Khadr also was left partially blind in the attack and was sent to Guantanamo.