"This is a real breakthrough," said Lee Zaslofsky of the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign. "What excites us is this may also apply to other war resisters who took part in Iraq."

The Geneva Convention prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" and "unlawful confinement."

[Joshua Key], 30, is the co-author of The Deserter's Tale, a book about serving in Iraq and his flight from the U.S. military. He was born in Oklahoma in 1978, enlisting in the military in 2002. He now lives in Spiritwood in northern Saskatchewan and says that he suffers from post-traumatic stress, including insomnia, nightmares and hallucinations that "flash me right back to Iraq."