This is from the National Post. International law means nothing to the U.S. unless it is some enemy of the U.S. that is supposed to be violating it. If Iran ignores UN resolutions sanctions are demanded; if Israel, more military aid is provided. If the U.S. violates international law as in the case of mining Nicaraguan harbours the U.S. manages to help overthrow the government and the U.S. friendly govt. does not try to collect damages.
Guantanamo is a blot on the legal landscape. The best that can be said is that there are some U.S. military lawyers that have shown backbone and have pointed out the flaws in the system, a lot more than Stephen Harper has ever done.
Even though the U.S. has signed the relevant convention in this case it simply ignores it, just as it ignores the Geneva Conventions when it comes to such techniques as water-boarding. Surely this move should convince Harper that Khadr cannot get a fair trial in Guanatanamo. Of course Harper already knows that but he doesn't care. Supporting Khadr will not get him a majority.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Presented by
Khadr's child soldier defence tossed out
Steven Edwards, Juliet O'Neill, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A U.S. military judge has dismissed the argument that Omar Khadr -- 15 at the time he allegedly threw a hand grenade that killed a U.S. serviceman -- should be spared a war crimes prosecution on grounds he was a "child soldier" under international law.
Col. Peter Brownback essentially endorsed the Pentagon argument that people under the age of 18 can be brought before the U.S. war crimes commissions at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to Khadr's military defence lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler.
The rejection is a significant setback for Khadr's defence, and little now stands in the way of his trial going ahead as scheduled around the end of July.
But Kuebler says it reflects what he and a significant number of jurists and human rights activists around the world call the bias of the commissions.
"This ruling is an embarrassment to the United States," said Kuebler, who has vigorously campaigned for the Canadian government to call for Khadr's return from the United States on grounds he can't get a fair trial in Guantanamo.
"The military commission process has now clearly failed and Canada will share in the embarrassment if it does not act soon."
The process, authorized by U.S. Congressional legislation in 2006 after the U.S. Supreme Court said earlier versions set up by the Bush administration were illegal, can impose the death penalty on those convicted of capital crimes.
Khadr faces five war crimes charges, including murder -- though the prosecution has said it will not seek the death penalty in his case if he is convicted, but could ask that he be imprisoned for life.
At the Pentagon, the administration office for the commissions had yet to release the text of the ruling Wednesday, and U.S. defence department spokespeople familiar with the process were unavailable.
Kuebler, who arrived in Ottawa Tuesday to speak of Khadr's predicament at hearings held by the parliamentary human rights subcommittee, announced the conclusion of the ruling in a press statement.
In separate rulings the Pentagon did release Wednesday, Brownback also dismissed a bid by Kuebler to have the five charges dismissed on grounds the offences didn't exist at the time of Khadr's 2002 capture because Congressional authorization was not granted until four years later.
Brownback cited Supreme Court rulings that gave Congress the right to let the commissions "determine for themselves what are the violations of the law of war."
At a Guantanamo hearing before Brownback in February, Kuebler argued the U.S. Congress couldn't have wanted the commissions to try people under the age of adulthood because allowing such would be inconsistent with the terms of a child soldier "protocol" Congress has ratified.
The protocol - which is attached to the global Rights of the Child treaty, and which Canada has also ratified - says countries that take child soldiers into custody should help with their "rehabilitation and social integration."
Kuebler also pointed out that commission rules fail to follow historical military law in the U.S. by distinguishing between juveniles and adults - therefore, he argued, the commissions are meant just for adults.
Prosecutors hit back by pointing out the protocol does not explicitly preclude prosecution of a child soldier - and said there was no evidence Congress "had any qualms" about prosecuting Khadr for war crimes because he was first charged a year before the 2006 authorization act.
""Congress therefore knew that the government intended to prosecute Khadr," prosecutors say in a written argument.
Kuebler and his civilian co-counsel, Rebecca Snyder, have uncovered U.S. military records that suggest Khadr may not have even lobbed the hand grenade that mortally wounded Delta Force Sgt. Chris Speer in a firefight in Afghanistan - and which led to the murder charge against him.
But while former Liberal administrations failed to consistently press for Toronto-born Khadr's return to Canada, the current Conservative government has said it intends to let the legal process play itself out before it goes beyond monitoring Khadr's detention conditions.
"Our best hope has always been intervention by the Canadian government to protect Omar's rights as a child soldier under international law," Kuebler said.
"I think if the Canadian government does not act soon, Omar is going to be convicted of a murder that he very likely did not commit and face a life sentence in a matter of months."
He spoke before meeting Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who has been calling for Khadr's repatriation since last September.
"If they are unable, our American friends, to give him a trial in a legal court, a regular court in the United States, we want him back in Canada," Dion told reporters.
In a prepared statement, Dion said the Canadian government has a duty to ensure Khadr's rights under the Canadian charter and international law are respected. "Omar Khadr is innocent until proven guilty and must be offered the same legal rights and due process as any other Canadian facing trial," Dion said. "This may not be a politically popular case to pursue, but this is the right thing to do."
He noted that lawyers who lead the bar associations in Canada, the United Kingdom and France have pointed out the U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006 wrongly subjects individuals to trial by military commission solely on the basis of their status as aliens.
"The trial and continuing detention of Omar Khadr constitutes a violation of the fundamental principles of the rule of law including: arbitrary and illegal detention, denial of procedural due process, denial of the right to counsel, and denial of the right to trial within a reasonable time before a fair and impartial tribunal," the statement said.
"Canada cannot pick and choose when to intervene on behalf of Canadians detained abroad. Omar Khadr must receive the same level of support from his government as would any other Canadian."
Canwest News Service
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Guantanamo military tribunals.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guantanamo military tribunals.. Show all posts
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Dallaire: Bring Khadr Home.
This is an eloquent argument for bringing Khadr back to Canada by Romeo Dallaire. While I appreciate the boy soldier argument there are plenty of arguments for intervening even without it. The idea that "child" soldiers are always victims seems to me seriously flawed. Omar was hardly coerced in the way that many African child soldiers were coerced. There is not some magic age at which teenagers gain free will! Omar's brother Abdurahman grew up in the same family and became a spy for the U.S. However, as Dallaire points out there are many other reasons such as lack of due process that would mandate Canadian intervention. Other countries defend their citizens in Guantanamo but not Canada. France has to intervene on Khadr's behalf. By the way Dallaire is wrong about Khadr being shot in the chest he was shot in the back. If the Special Forces people had not decided he was an asset he would have been executed as the other person who was alive was.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Presented by
Bring Omar Khadr home
Romeo Dallaire, National Post
Published: Monday, March 31, 2008
Reuters
Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen who was a 15-year-old child soldier when he allegedly killed a U.S. serviceman during a firefight in Afghanistan. The debate about his return to Canada must begin and end there. That the current and past Canadian governments have failed to secure his release and repatriation is a glaring instance of hypocrisy by this country that prides itself on its advocacy of human rights and adherence to international law.
Child soldiers who are Canadian citizens belong in Canada for due judicial processing and, more importantly, for rehabilitation after having been reared and coerced into extremism and violence.
All other details about Omar Khadr's activities in Afghanistan and the aftermath of his capture by U.S. forces only strengthen the argument for his return. The 15-year-old Omar was in a compound during aU.S. attack and was shot twice in the chest during the raid. After his capture, he was transferred to the U.S.'s infamous Bagram detention facility where he was processed as an adult combatant and very likely mistreated and tortured.
Since 2002, Mr. Khadr has undergone relentless interrogation at the notorious U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Following years in detention, Mr. Khadr was charged in February, 2007 for war crimes and terrorism under a military tribunal the Bush administration arbitrarily created and continues to manipulate. This makeshift tribunal allows statements made under coercion and hides potentially exculpatory evidence. Despite international protests, Mr. Khadr will be the first ever child soldier tried for alleged war crimes by any Western nation, including the United States.
Canada's Conservative government has demonstrated a sorry lack of decisiveness and effort to bring Khadr home. Our other allies recognized at the outset that Guantanamo was no place for due process, and quickly and successfully pushed for their citizens' release and repatriation. Today, Mr. Khadr is the only remaining citizen of a Western country incarcerated in Guantanamo.
Although Canada has no established system for dealing with child soldiers, we can learn much from nations that do. Rwanda and Sierra Leone, for example, countries we smugly categorize as underdeveloped, use a combination of demobilization, youth justice and rehabilitation on child soldiers who were abused and used to commit unspeakable acts.
Even in Afghanistan where a war is in full swing, thousands of former child soldiers are processed through UN-designed special rehabilitation programs. Such programs are founded on the principle that child soldiers, regardless of their actions during conflict, are themselves victims who were incapable of the adult decision-making consistent with our conventional notions of responsibility and guilt.
In the face of my repeated questions in the Senate and the outcry from human rights groups about Omar Khadr's fate, the Canadian government remains blind and deaf to the obvious. They simply spout the same stock response: he "faces serious charges" and he is "being treated humanely."
As to his status as a child soldier, the government maintains a shameful silence. Perhaps the fact that Khadr's alleged victim was an American intimidates our government. Or perhaps it doesn't like the Khadr family's political views and therefore ignores Omar's plight. How ironic the government fought so vigorously to contain outrage about possible human rights violations of Afghan detainees, yet they ignore those of Mr. Khadr, a Canadian.
Canada's stance on the Khadr case unquestionably violates the spirit of the UN protocol on child soldiers and makes a mockery of our championing this and similar human rights causes.
The recent Manley report on Canada's mission in Afghanistan correctly points out that our commitment "gives faithful expression to our values" and affords us a larger role on the world stage. While the bravery and professionalism of our soldiers in Afghanistan have indeed enhanced our standing as an emerging middle power, the government's handling of other files clearly detracts from our credibility. In Darfur, for example, we have coldly turned our backs on our own Responsibility-to-Protect principles.
The international community notices all of Canada's glaring missteps on the world stage and carefully compares our words to our actions. If we continue to allow discrepancies between the two, we will quickly become known as 'the ugly Canadian' --hypocritical in the international community and uncaring at home. In Omar Khadr's case, we are in danger of being both. - Lt.-Gen. (ret'd) Romeo Dallaire is a Liberal Senator and former Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Presented by
Bring Omar Khadr home
Romeo Dallaire, National Post
Published: Monday, March 31, 2008
Reuters
Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen who was a 15-year-old child soldier when he allegedly killed a U.S. serviceman during a firefight in Afghanistan. The debate about his return to Canada must begin and end there. That the current and past Canadian governments have failed to secure his release and repatriation is a glaring instance of hypocrisy by this country that prides itself on its advocacy of human rights and adherence to international law.
Child soldiers who are Canadian citizens belong in Canada for due judicial processing and, more importantly, for rehabilitation after having been reared and coerced into extremism and violence.
All other details about Omar Khadr's activities in Afghanistan and the aftermath of his capture by U.S. forces only strengthen the argument for his return. The 15-year-old Omar was in a compound during aU.S. attack and was shot twice in the chest during the raid. After his capture, he was transferred to the U.S.'s infamous Bagram detention facility where he was processed as an adult combatant and very likely mistreated and tortured.
Since 2002, Mr. Khadr has undergone relentless interrogation at the notorious U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Following years in detention, Mr. Khadr was charged in February, 2007 for war crimes and terrorism under a military tribunal the Bush administration arbitrarily created and continues to manipulate. This makeshift tribunal allows statements made under coercion and hides potentially exculpatory evidence. Despite international protests, Mr. Khadr will be the first ever child soldier tried for alleged war crimes by any Western nation, including the United States.
Canada's Conservative government has demonstrated a sorry lack of decisiveness and effort to bring Khadr home. Our other allies recognized at the outset that Guantanamo was no place for due process, and quickly and successfully pushed for their citizens' release and repatriation. Today, Mr. Khadr is the only remaining citizen of a Western country incarcerated in Guantanamo.
Although Canada has no established system for dealing with child soldiers, we can learn much from nations that do. Rwanda and Sierra Leone, for example, countries we smugly categorize as underdeveloped, use a combination of demobilization, youth justice and rehabilitation on child soldiers who were abused and used to commit unspeakable acts.
Even in Afghanistan where a war is in full swing, thousands of former child soldiers are processed through UN-designed special rehabilitation programs. Such programs are founded on the principle that child soldiers, regardless of their actions during conflict, are themselves victims who were incapable of the adult decision-making consistent with our conventional notions of responsibility and guilt.
In the face of my repeated questions in the Senate and the outcry from human rights groups about Omar Khadr's fate, the Canadian government remains blind and deaf to the obvious. They simply spout the same stock response: he "faces serious charges" and he is "being treated humanely."
As to his status as a child soldier, the government maintains a shameful silence. Perhaps the fact that Khadr's alleged victim was an American intimidates our government. Or perhaps it doesn't like the Khadr family's political views and therefore ignores Omar's plight. How ironic the government fought so vigorously to contain outrage about possible human rights violations of Afghan detainees, yet they ignore those of Mr. Khadr, a Canadian.
Canada's stance on the Khadr case unquestionably violates the spirit of the UN protocol on child soldiers and makes a mockery of our championing this and similar human rights causes.
The recent Manley report on Canada's mission in Afghanistan correctly points out that our commitment "gives faithful expression to our values" and affords us a larger role on the world stage. While the bravery and professionalism of our soldiers in Afghanistan have indeed enhanced our standing as an emerging middle power, the government's handling of other files clearly detracts from our credibility. In Darfur, for example, we have coldly turned our backs on our own Responsibility-to-Protect principles.
The international community notices all of Canada's glaring missteps on the world stage and carefully compares our words to our actions. If we continue to allow discrepancies between the two, we will quickly become known as 'the ugly Canadian' --hypocritical in the international community and uncaring at home. In Omar Khadr's case, we are in danger of being both. - Lt.-Gen. (ret'd) Romeo Dallaire is a Liberal Senator and former Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Interrogator: I didn't hurt Khadr
The last sentence of the article says it all.
" The documents released last week note Claus was once offered immunity in order to testify about the Khadr case. He said yesterday he could not discuss the issue."
The prosecution do not want this character to be put on the stand and subject to any cross-examination. His statements sound like unsconscious humour. This guy who was jailed for months for maltreatment and assault of Dilawar was he claims nevertheless sympathetic to Khadr who after all was surely known to be a member of a notorious family of Al Qaeda supporters--except for the black sheep who spied for the U.S.
Interrogator: I didn't hurt Khadr
Ex-prosecutor seeks retirement
The U.S. Air Force lawyer who quit as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war court five months ago alleging political interference has asked to leave the U.S. military.Ex-U.S. soldier says he spent much of his time trying to understand and win the trust of young Canadian
Mar 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
A former U.S. soldier who spent weeks interrogating Omar Khadr says he wants to testify before a Guantanamo Bay court and rejects any accusations that he harshly treated the Canadian detainee.
In the first interview he has given since leaving the army, Joshua Claus told the Toronto Star that he feels he has been unfairly portrayed concerning his work as an interrogator at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
"They're trying to imply I'm beating or torturing everybody I ever talked to," Claus said by telephone yesterday. "I really don't care what people think of me. I know what I did and I know what I didn't do."
Claus was identified during a Guantanamo hearing as Khadr's chief interrogator during the three months the Toronto teenager was imprisoned in Bagram.
Khadr had been shot and captured in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002, following a firefight in which he's alleged to have thrown a grenade that fatally wounded Delta Force soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer.
The prosecution is relying on damning statements Khadr made in Bagram, reportedly admitting his involvement, which his lawyers argue were gleaned under torture.
Khadr faces five war crimes charges before a military commission including "murder in violation of the laws of war," for Speer's death. The Pentagon also alleges he conspired to kill U.S. forces in Afghanistan and provided support to Al Qaeda.
Khadr's lawyers fought to get access to Claus at a Guantanamo hearing earlier this month after the prosecution had dropped him from a previous witness list.
Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler accused the prosecution of trying to hide Claus' identity because he had been involved in the interrogation of an Afghan detainee who died in U.S. custody.
The December 2002 death of anAfghan taxi driver named Dilawar was ruled a homicide by military investigators and was the subject of a New York Times investigation and an Oscar-winning documentary called Taxi to the Darkside. Both the film and newspaper story portrayed an inexperienced unit of soldiers under tremendous pressure to get intelligence in Bagram.
Claus was 21 at the time, and the assignment was his first deployment. But he said yesterday it was unfair to compare his interrogation of Khadr to that of Dilawar or the other detainees.
"Omar was pretty much my first big case," Claus said, noting that they'd talk for six to eight hours a day. "With Omar I spent a lot of time trying to understand who he was and what I could say to him or do for him, whether it be to bring him extra food or get a letter out to his family ... I needed to talk to him and get him to trust me."
He said he was trying to find a "symbiotic relationship" with Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his capture.
In September 2005, Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault of Dilawar and was sentenced to five months in jail.
The 2,000-page confidential army file on the investigation into the case, obtained by The New York Times, quotes another soldier saying that on the day Dilawar died, Claus stood behind him and twisted up the back of the hood that covered his head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behaviour seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."
"These two events are completely separate," Claus said yesterday, pointing out Khadr's interrogation was three months before Dilawar's, among other differences.
He said he became "emotionally involved" with the Dilawar case and lost his temper, unlike Khadr's interrogation, which was controlled.
Khadr's time at Bagram is key because the prosecution has relied on his interrogations in building the case against the Toronto-born detainee, who is now 21.
"Toward the end of the firefight, the accused threw a grenade that killed Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer," notes the prosecution in a court submission last year, with a footnote to an "interview of accused Sept. 17, 2002."
The court filing to Washington's Court of Military Commission Review continues: "When asked on September 17, 2002, why he helped the men construct the explosives the accused (Khadr) responded `to kill U.S. forces.'
"The accused then related during the same interview that he had been told the U.S. wanted to go to war against Islam. And for that reason he assisted in the building and later deploying of the explosives, and later threw a grenade at the American."
In an affidavit released this month, Khadr claims he was sometimes brought to interrogations on a stretcher – still recovering from being shot twice in the back and extensive eye injuries. His lawyers argue his statements are unreliable because they were the product of "coercion or torture."
Claus said yesterday he had not been contacted by the prosecution recently and did not know if he would be called to testify. He would also not comment on what he is doing now or disclose the location from where he was calling.
The documents released last week note Claus was once offered immunity in order to testify about the Khadr case. He said yesterday he could not discuss the issue.
" The documents released last week note Claus was once offered immunity in order to testify about the Khadr case. He said yesterday he could not discuss the issue."
The prosecution do not want this character to be put on the stand and subject to any cross-examination. His statements sound like unsconscious humour. This guy who was jailed for months for maltreatment and assault of Dilawar was he claims nevertheless sympathetic to Khadr who after all was surely known to be a member of a notorious family of Al Qaeda supporters--except for the black sheep who spied for the U.S.
Interrogator: I didn't hurt Khadr
Ex-prosecutor seeks retirement
The U.S. Air Force lawyer who quit as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war court five months ago alleging political interference has asked to leave the U.S. military.Ex-U.S. soldier says he spent much of his time trying to understand and win the trust of young Canadian
Mar 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
A former U.S. soldier who spent weeks interrogating Omar Khadr says he wants to testify before a Guantanamo Bay court and rejects any accusations that he harshly treated the Canadian detainee.
In the first interview he has given since leaving the army, Joshua Claus told the Toronto Star that he feels he has been unfairly portrayed concerning his work as an interrogator at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
"They're trying to imply I'm beating or torturing everybody I ever talked to," Claus said by telephone yesterday. "I really don't care what people think of me. I know what I did and I know what I didn't do."
Claus was identified during a Guantanamo hearing as Khadr's chief interrogator during the three months the Toronto teenager was imprisoned in Bagram.
Khadr had been shot and captured in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002, following a firefight in which he's alleged to have thrown a grenade that fatally wounded Delta Force soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer.
The prosecution is relying on damning statements Khadr made in Bagram, reportedly admitting his involvement, which his lawyers argue were gleaned under torture.
Khadr faces five war crimes charges before a military commission including "murder in violation of the laws of war," for Speer's death. The Pentagon also alleges he conspired to kill U.S. forces in Afghanistan and provided support to Al Qaeda.
Khadr's lawyers fought to get access to Claus at a Guantanamo hearing earlier this month after the prosecution had dropped him from a previous witness list.
Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler accused the prosecution of trying to hide Claus' identity because he had been involved in the interrogation of an Afghan detainee who died in U.S. custody.
The December 2002 death of anAfghan taxi driver named Dilawar was ruled a homicide by military investigators and was the subject of a New York Times investigation and an Oscar-winning documentary called Taxi to the Darkside. Both the film and newspaper story portrayed an inexperienced unit of soldiers under tremendous pressure to get intelligence in Bagram.
Claus was 21 at the time, and the assignment was his first deployment. But he said yesterday it was unfair to compare his interrogation of Khadr to that of Dilawar or the other detainees.
"Omar was pretty much my first big case," Claus said, noting that they'd talk for six to eight hours a day. "With Omar I spent a lot of time trying to understand who he was and what I could say to him or do for him, whether it be to bring him extra food or get a letter out to his family ... I needed to talk to him and get him to trust me."
He said he was trying to find a "symbiotic relationship" with Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his capture.
In September 2005, Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault of Dilawar and was sentenced to five months in jail.
The 2,000-page confidential army file on the investigation into the case, obtained by The New York Times, quotes another soldier saying that on the day Dilawar died, Claus stood behind him and twisted up the back of the hood that covered his head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behaviour seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."
"These two events are completely separate," Claus said yesterday, pointing out Khadr's interrogation was three months before Dilawar's, among other differences.
He said he became "emotionally involved" with the Dilawar case and lost his temper, unlike Khadr's interrogation, which was controlled.
Khadr's time at Bagram is key because the prosecution has relied on his interrogations in building the case against the Toronto-born detainee, who is now 21.
"Toward the end of the firefight, the accused threw a grenade that killed Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer," notes the prosecution in a court submission last year, with a footnote to an "interview of accused Sept. 17, 2002."
The court filing to Washington's Court of Military Commission Review continues: "When asked on September 17, 2002, why he helped the men construct the explosives the accused (Khadr) responded `to kill U.S. forces.'
"The accused then related during the same interview that he had been told the U.S. wanted to go to war against Islam. And for that reason he assisted in the building and later deploying of the explosives, and later threw a grenade at the American."
In an affidavit released this month, Khadr claims he was sometimes brought to interrogations on a stretcher – still recovering from being shot twice in the back and extensive eye injuries. His lawyers argue his statements are unreliable because they were the product of "coercion or torture."
Claus said yesterday he had not been contacted by the prosecution recently and did not know if he would be called to testify. He would also not comment on what he is doing now or disclose the location from where he was calling.
The documents released last week note Claus was once offered immunity in order to testify about the Khadr case. He said yesterday he could not discuss the issue.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Khadr's U.S. lawyer urges Ottawa to act.
Harper is not about to question the U.S. kangaroo court even though the court's lack of credibility is more than obvious, so obvious that the head of the tribunals had to resign for saying that the idea was to obtain convictions.
Harper knows that the Khadr family is well known to Canadians for their connection to Al Qaeda so they are not likely to care about violation of Khadr's rights. Harper is very supportive of human rights when it is politically astute to do so but otherwise it seems he is quite prepared to cater to his friend Bush and his cronies.
Khadr's U.S. lawyer urges Ottawa to act
Navy officer joins opposition parties to ask federal government to seek release of `child soldier'
Feb 26, 2008 04:30 AM tonda maccharles ottawa bureau
OTTAWA–The United States returned up to a dozen children and teenagers held as "combatants" in Guantanamo Bay to their respective countries, and might well act if it received a request from Canada to return Omar Khadr, says his military lawyer.
U.S. Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, flanked by members of the three federal opposition parties, yesterday urged the Conservative government to insist on Khadr's return, suggesting the time is ripe for the U.S. to accede to such a request.
"Omar is, in our view and I think in the view of most of the international community who have looked at this case, a child soldier," said Kuebler. "His prosecution for war crimes is unprecedented in the history of war crimes tribunals."
Khadr was 15 when arrested.
The opposition parties united for the first time in calling on the Canadian government to act, and said they would seek an emergency debate in Parliament on Khadr's fate, as well as a study by a human rights subcommittee of the Commons' Foreign Affairs committee.
But the federal government appeared unmoved by the arguments, calling demands to have Khadr returned "premature" as "legal" processes are still underway.
Kuebler said that while details are scarce, the U.S. has jailed up to a dozen young people, some as young as age 10, at Guantanamo Bay. He said they are held at a separate facility known as Camp Iguana, with appropriate educational and developmental services provided as international conventions dictate for "child soldiers."
Among them, Kuebler said, was a 14-year-old Afghan boy arrested in the death of the first American soldier killed in this Afghan conflict, who was also eventually released.
None of the other so-called "child soldiers" ended up facing charges, much less war crimes charges, said Kuebler. All were returned at the request of their governments.
Khadr was singled out and treated differently, he suggested, because his father was Ahmed Said Khadr, a senior Al Qaeda fundraiser. The younger Khadr, "recruited" at age 10, was believed to have "intelligence value," and so was subjected to "rigorous interrogation."
Khadr was captured in July 2002 in Afghanistan, after a battle with U.S. Special Forces. He faces charges of murder "in violation of the laws of war" in the death of medic Sgt. Christopher Speer, attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material support to terrorism.
"If a just outcome is to be secured in Omar Khadr's case, it's going to be because the Canadian government follows the lead of the British government and the Australian government and every other Western country that has demanded the repatriation of its citizen from Guantanamo Bay to face due process in a legitimate system," said Kuebler.
But Neil Hrab, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, said nothing has changed from the government's view.
"Omar Khadr faces serious charges. The Government of Canada has sought and received assurances that Mr. Khadr is being treated humanely," Hrab said in an email. "Departmental officials have carried out several welfare visits with Mr. Khadr and will continue to do so. Any questions regarding whether Canada plans to ask for the release of Omar Khadr from Guantanamo are premature and speculative as the legal process and appeals are still underway."
Kuebler said the U.S. case against Khadr is "pure fiction," and cited recent revelations that there was, in fact, another surviving combatant after the gunfight, in addition to Khadr, raising the possibility he was not the one who threw the grenade that killed the U.S. soldier.
New Democrat MP and justice critic Joe Comartin, Liberal Dominic Leblanc and the Bloc's Vivienne Barbot said Khadr is a "child soldier" who should be returned to Canada to face "due process."
Meanwhile, the Canadian Bar Association yesterday joined counterparts in France and England in calling on U.S. President George W. Bush to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison, calling it "a grievous affront to the rule of law."'
With files from Tracey Tyler
Harper knows that the Khadr family is well known to Canadians for their connection to Al Qaeda so they are not likely to care about violation of Khadr's rights. Harper is very supportive of human rights when it is politically astute to do so but otherwise it seems he is quite prepared to cater to his friend Bush and his cronies.
Khadr's U.S. lawyer urges Ottawa to act
Navy officer joins opposition parties to ask federal government to seek release of `child soldier'
Feb 26, 2008 04:30 AM tonda maccharles ottawa bureau
OTTAWA–The United States returned up to a dozen children and teenagers held as "combatants" in Guantanamo Bay to their respective countries, and might well act if it received a request from Canada to return Omar Khadr, says his military lawyer.
U.S. Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, flanked by members of the three federal opposition parties, yesterday urged the Conservative government to insist on Khadr's return, suggesting the time is ripe for the U.S. to accede to such a request.
"Omar is, in our view and I think in the view of most of the international community who have looked at this case, a child soldier," said Kuebler. "His prosecution for war crimes is unprecedented in the history of war crimes tribunals."
Khadr was 15 when arrested.
The opposition parties united for the first time in calling on the Canadian government to act, and said they would seek an emergency debate in Parliament on Khadr's fate, as well as a study by a human rights subcommittee of the Commons' Foreign Affairs committee.
But the federal government appeared unmoved by the arguments, calling demands to have Khadr returned "premature" as "legal" processes are still underway.
Kuebler said that while details are scarce, the U.S. has jailed up to a dozen young people, some as young as age 10, at Guantanamo Bay. He said they are held at a separate facility known as Camp Iguana, with appropriate educational and developmental services provided as international conventions dictate for "child soldiers."
Among them, Kuebler said, was a 14-year-old Afghan boy arrested in the death of the first American soldier killed in this Afghan conflict, who was also eventually released.
None of the other so-called "child soldiers" ended up facing charges, much less war crimes charges, said Kuebler. All were returned at the request of their governments.
Khadr was singled out and treated differently, he suggested, because his father was Ahmed Said Khadr, a senior Al Qaeda fundraiser. The younger Khadr, "recruited" at age 10, was believed to have "intelligence value," and so was subjected to "rigorous interrogation."
Khadr was captured in July 2002 in Afghanistan, after a battle with U.S. Special Forces. He faces charges of murder "in violation of the laws of war" in the death of medic Sgt. Christopher Speer, attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material support to terrorism.
"If a just outcome is to be secured in Omar Khadr's case, it's going to be because the Canadian government follows the lead of the British government and the Australian government and every other Western country that has demanded the repatriation of its citizen from Guantanamo Bay to face due process in a legitimate system," said Kuebler.
But Neil Hrab, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, said nothing has changed from the government's view.
"Omar Khadr faces serious charges. The Government of Canada has sought and received assurances that Mr. Khadr is being treated humanely," Hrab said in an email. "Departmental officials have carried out several welfare visits with Mr. Khadr and will continue to do so. Any questions regarding whether Canada plans to ask for the release of Omar Khadr from Guantanamo are premature and speculative as the legal process and appeals are still underway."
Kuebler said the U.S. case against Khadr is "pure fiction," and cited recent revelations that there was, in fact, another surviving combatant after the gunfight, in addition to Khadr, raising the possibility he was not the one who threw the grenade that killed the U.S. soldier.
New Democrat MP and justice critic Joe Comartin, Liberal Dominic Leblanc and the Bloc's Vivienne Barbot said Khadr is a "child soldier" who should be returned to Canada to face "due process."
Meanwhile, the Canadian Bar Association yesterday joined counterparts in France and England in calling on U.S. President George W. Bush to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison, calling it "a grievous affront to the rule of law."'
With files from Tracey Tyler
Head of Guantanamo trials resigns.
William Haynes is the architect of these military trials. He was not supposed to reveal that they are designed so as to ensure convictions. If anyone ever had the slightest faith in these trials this event should disabuse them of that. Of course
Head of Guantanamo trials resigns
By Steven Edwards
Canwest News Service
Monday, February 25, 2008
NEW YORK - The Pentagon official overseeing the planned military trials of Canadian Omar Khadr and other terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba resigned Monday - just days after a published report alleged he'd insisted there be no acquittals.
As General Counsel at the U.S. defence department, William J. Haynes was a leading architect of the military commission system U.S. President George. W. Bush ordered established in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But his alleged backroom insistence the commission produce only convictions provoked a rush of commentary - much of charging it proved the trials will be a sham.
"I am sorry to see Jim leave the Pentagon," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Washington. "I have valued his legal advice and enjoyed working with him. Jim held this important post longer than anyone in history and he did so during one of America's most trying periods."
Haynes' alleged comments appeared in an interview Nation magazine conducted with Col. Morris Davis, who resigned last October as the commission's chief prosecutor, citing political interference.
"I said to (Haynes) that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis was quoted as saying about an August 2005 meeting the two men had.
"At which point, his eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? . . . We've got to have convictions.'"
The Pentagon has disputed Davis's recollection of the conversation, and denied there is any connection between the Nation article and Haynes' resignation, which takes effect next month.
"Mr. Haynes discussed his interest in returning to the private sector with the Secretary of Defence some months ago," said spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith. "Mr. Haynes was recently presented with an excellent opportunity and he and his family decided to take (it)."
Haynes' departure makes little difference for Khadr's prospects before the commission, his U.S. military lawyer, Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, told Canwest News Service.
"Whether or not Mr. Haynes is managing the commission, it is still the process he helped to create," Kuebler said.
"Consistent with his comments, it is designed to produce convictions of the presumptively guilty."
Kuebler spoke from Ottawa where, earlier in the day, he had joined opposition MPs in calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene on behalf of Khadr.
"The Guantanamo Bay military commission process does not provide a fair trial. It is a political process," he said.
A military judge will rule soon on Kuebler's recent bid to have the charges against Khadr - who was 15 when U.S. forces seized him on an Afghan battlefield - dropped on grounds the commission isn't designed to try child soldiers.
"All (other) children taken to Guantanamo were ultimately released to be reintegrated back into the societies of their home countries - including a 14-year-old Afghani boy who was responsible for the death of a U.S. serviceman," Kuebler said.
Kuebler argued the United States has held onto Khadr on suspicion he has "intelligence value." Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, had been an al-Qaida operative close to Osama bin Laden before being killed in a U.S. air raid.
But Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon said the litany of charges against Khadr warrant his detention and eventual trial as an adult. He is accused in a grenade attack that left a U.S. serviceman dead.
"Omar Khadr is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying, all in violation of the Military Commissions Act," he said.
"Canadian law and U.S. law both provide that a person of Khadr's age alleged to have committed such offences can be tried as an adult . . . If Khadr is found guilty, however, age may be relevant at sentencing."
Barring a successful motion to dismiss, Khadr is scheduled to go on trial in May.
© Canwest News Service 2008
Head of Guantanamo trials resigns
By Steven Edwards
Canwest News Service
Monday, February 25, 2008
NEW YORK - The Pentagon official overseeing the planned military trials of Canadian Omar Khadr and other terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba resigned Monday - just days after a published report alleged he'd insisted there be no acquittals.
As General Counsel at the U.S. defence department, William J. Haynes was a leading architect of the military commission system U.S. President George. W. Bush ordered established in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But his alleged backroom insistence the commission produce only convictions provoked a rush of commentary - much of charging it proved the trials will be a sham.
"I am sorry to see Jim leave the Pentagon," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Washington. "I have valued his legal advice and enjoyed working with him. Jim held this important post longer than anyone in history and he did so during one of America's most trying periods."
Haynes' alleged comments appeared in an interview Nation magazine conducted with Col. Morris Davis, who resigned last October as the commission's chief prosecutor, citing political interference.
"I said to (Haynes) that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis was quoted as saying about an August 2005 meeting the two men had.
"At which point, his eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? . . . We've got to have convictions.'"
The Pentagon has disputed Davis's recollection of the conversation, and denied there is any connection between the Nation article and Haynes' resignation, which takes effect next month.
"Mr. Haynes discussed his interest in returning to the private sector with the Secretary of Defence some months ago," said spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith. "Mr. Haynes was recently presented with an excellent opportunity and he and his family decided to take (it)."
Haynes' departure makes little difference for Khadr's prospects before the commission, his U.S. military lawyer, Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, told Canwest News Service.
"Whether or not Mr. Haynes is managing the commission, it is still the process he helped to create," Kuebler said.
"Consistent with his comments, it is designed to produce convictions of the presumptively guilty."
Kuebler spoke from Ottawa where, earlier in the day, he had joined opposition MPs in calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene on behalf of Khadr.
"The Guantanamo Bay military commission process does not provide a fair trial. It is a political process," he said.
A military judge will rule soon on Kuebler's recent bid to have the charges against Khadr - who was 15 when U.S. forces seized him on an Afghan battlefield - dropped on grounds the commission isn't designed to try child soldiers.
"All (other) children taken to Guantanamo were ultimately released to be reintegrated back into the societies of their home countries - including a 14-year-old Afghani boy who was responsible for the death of a U.S. serviceman," Kuebler said.
Kuebler argued the United States has held onto Khadr on suspicion he has "intelligence value." Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, had been an al-Qaida operative close to Osama bin Laden before being killed in a U.S. air raid.
But Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon said the litany of charges against Khadr warrant his detention and eventual trial as an adult. He is accused in a grenade attack that left a U.S. serviceman dead.
"Omar Khadr is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying, all in violation of the Military Commissions Act," he said.
"Canadian law and U.S. law both provide that a person of Khadr's age alleged to have committed such offences can be tried as an adult . . . If Khadr is found guilty, however, age may be relevant at sentencing."
Barring a successful motion to dismiss, Khadr is scheduled to go on trial in May.
© Canwest News Service 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Lawyers: New witness accounts show Khadr charges should dropped.
It would seem difficult to screw up the farce going on in Guantanamo at the military tribunals (aka Kangaroo courts, Star Chambers) but they have done so. Apparently the classified document released to reporters inadvertently had not been given to the defence or they would have used it in the first instance. There are now numerous grounds for dropping the charges but it remains to be seen what will happen. The government would probably appeal or do something to avoid letting Khadr go if the Tribunal should listen to the defence. Of course Harper the great champion of human rights has faith in the US justice system! He alone among those who have citizens at Guantanamo has failed to intervene on his behalf. Harper should be embarassed that France as well as Canadian lawyers and others have to speak up on behalf of Khadr's rights.
New witness account shows Khadr charges should be dropped: lawyers
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 5, 2008 6:57 AM ET
CBC News
Lawyers for Omar Khadr called on U.S. authorities Monday to dismiss a murder charge against the Canadian, saying a newly revealed eyewitness account that had been covered up by the Pentagon casts doubt on the official version of events.
Khadr, now 21, is charged with hurling a grenade that killed American Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. He's been in custody at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since then.
According to the original U.S. military version of events, Khadr ambushed American soldiers with a grenade following a four-hour fight at a mud compound in Afghanistan.
Pentagon officials later backtracked slightly after it was revealed nobody witnessed Khadr throw the grenade. Pentagon officials said an eyewitness wasn't needed, because Khadr was the only al-Qaeda fighter left alive and the only person who could have thrown the grenade.
However, a classified document, inadvertently released to reporters at the military prison by a Pentagon official Monday, provides a different eyewitness account of the events.
A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.
The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.
The Pentagon says American soldiers fired on Khadr in self-defence after he tried to attack them.
Khadr's military lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler suggests that the U.S. military may have been involved in a coverup.
"The U.S. government had a problem on its hands when it found that it had a 15-year-old Canadian on its hands with two gaping bullet holes in his back that had been facing away from the fight," said Kuebler.
Kuebler hopes the eyewitness account introduces enough reasonable doubt that Judge Peter Brownback will have to dismiss the murder charge against Khadr.
The lawyers argue that Khadr's alleged offences occurred in a combat setting, and therefore should not be considered war crimes committed by an irregular "enemy combatant."
They're asking a military judge to drop the charges, since Khadr was only 15 when he was captured.
If convicted, Khadr faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.With files from the Canadian Press
New witness account shows Khadr charges should be dropped: lawyers
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 5, 2008 6:57 AM ET
CBC News
Lawyers for Omar Khadr called on U.S. authorities Monday to dismiss a murder charge against the Canadian, saying a newly revealed eyewitness account that had been covered up by the Pentagon casts doubt on the official version of events.
Khadr, now 21, is charged with hurling a grenade that killed American Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. He's been in custody at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since then.
According to the original U.S. military version of events, Khadr ambushed American soldiers with a grenade following a four-hour fight at a mud compound in Afghanistan.
Pentagon officials later backtracked slightly after it was revealed nobody witnessed Khadr throw the grenade. Pentagon officials said an eyewitness wasn't needed, because Khadr was the only al-Qaeda fighter left alive and the only person who could have thrown the grenade.
However, a classified document, inadvertently released to reporters at the military prison by a Pentagon official Monday, provides a different eyewitness account of the events.
A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.
The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.
The Pentagon says American soldiers fired on Khadr in self-defence after he tried to attack them.
Khadr's military lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler suggests that the U.S. military may have been involved in a coverup.
"The U.S. government had a problem on its hands when it found that it had a 15-year-old Canadian on its hands with two gaping bullet holes in his back that had been facing away from the fight," said Kuebler.
Kuebler hopes the eyewitness account introduces enough reasonable doubt that Judge Peter Brownback will have to dismiss the murder charge against Khadr.
The lawyers argue that Khadr's alleged offences occurred in a combat setting, and therefore should not be considered war crimes committed by an irregular "enemy combatant."
They're asking a military judge to drop the charges, since Khadr was only 15 when he was captured.
If convicted, Khadr faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.With files from the Canadian Press
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Khadr Case at Guantanamo
This just gives a small sample of the nature of the farce being played out at these tribunals. The judge apparently doesn't understnd the nature of the supreme court ruling and goes blithely on assuming that Khadr fits the definition of an unlawful combatant. Notice that he does not even suggest one reason for the presumption. But the reason is simple he wants to get on with the trial and damn the law.
THe judge will not countenance any appeal that the defence might make to international or constitutional law. He will only allow appeal to the laws of kangaroo courts.
As far back at August the Canadian Bar Assoc. had asked Harper to request that Khadr be sent back to Canada to face trial but of course that appeal fell on deaf ears:
Aug 13, 2007 08:25 AM
Tracey Tyler
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
CALGARY–Canada's largest legal organization is demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper begin negotiating with the United States government to have 20-year-old Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr freed from a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned to face justice at home.
It is not enough, the Canadian Bar Association says, for the federal government to accept the Bush administration's assurances that due process is being followed at the U.S. naval base, described by Khadr's own military lawyer as a "modern-day Devil's Island."
In a letter sent to Harper yesterday, outgoing bar association president Parker MacCarthy is asking that Khadr be released "into the custody of Canadian law enforcement officials" and returned to Canada to face due process under Canadian law.
+++++++++++++=====
US: Guantanamo Judge Allows Military Commissions to Proceed in Khadr Case
(Guantanamo Bay, November 8, 2007) – A military judge today allowed the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo Bay to go forward without hearing evidence as to whether or not Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian who has been in US custody for more than five years, met the definition of an “unlawful enemy combatant” as required by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Human Rights Watch said today.
The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake. It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch
Just Another Day in a Guantanamo Courtroom
Commentary, November 9, 2007
The judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, said he was moving forward on the presumption that Khadr met the definition, but left open the possibility that the defense could challenge the commission’s jurisdiction at a later date.
During the hearing, Khadr’s defense counsel challenged Brownback’s impartiality and questioned whether or not he was fit to preside over the case.
Responding to questioning from the defense, Brownback said that he did not think that the Supreme Court had declared the military commissions system illegal in its June 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In Hamdan, the Supreme Court held that because the Uniform Code of Military Justice provision on military commissions had not been complied with, “the rules specified for Hamdan’s trial are illegal.”
“The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over.”
Judge Brownback also indicated both in today’s answers and in prior orders that he will not consider challenges to the military commissions based on constitutional or international law.
When asked what law he would rely on in presiding over the commission he said he would only consider the Military Commissions Act and associated Department of Defense rules and orders.
“The key question going forward is the legitimacy of the system,” Daskal said. “Yet the judge’s comments suggest that he will prevent the defense from raising essential constitutional and international law issues.”
The court set dates for the defense to file motions, but has not decided when the next military commission hearing will be.
THe judge will not countenance any appeal that the defence might make to international or constitutional law. He will only allow appeal to the laws of kangaroo courts.
As far back at August the Canadian Bar Assoc. had asked Harper to request that Khadr be sent back to Canada to face trial but of course that appeal fell on deaf ears:
Aug 13, 2007 08:25 AM
Tracey Tyler
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
CALGARY–Canada's largest legal organization is demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper begin negotiating with the United States government to have 20-year-old Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr freed from a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned to face justice at home.
It is not enough, the Canadian Bar Association says, for the federal government to accept the Bush administration's assurances that due process is being followed at the U.S. naval base, described by Khadr's own military lawyer as a "modern-day Devil's Island."
In a letter sent to Harper yesterday, outgoing bar association president Parker MacCarthy is asking that Khadr be released "into the custody of Canadian law enforcement officials" and returned to Canada to face due process under Canadian law.
+++++++++++++=====
US: Guantanamo Judge Allows Military Commissions to Proceed in Khadr Case
(Guantanamo Bay, November 8, 2007) – A military judge today allowed the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo Bay to go forward without hearing evidence as to whether or not Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian who has been in US custody for more than five years, met the definition of an “unlawful enemy combatant” as required by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Human Rights Watch said today.
The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake. It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch
Just Another Day in a Guantanamo Courtroom
Commentary, November 9, 2007
The judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, said he was moving forward on the presumption that Khadr met the definition, but left open the possibility that the defense could challenge the commission’s jurisdiction at a later date.
During the hearing, Khadr’s defense counsel challenged Brownback’s impartiality and questioned whether or not he was fit to preside over the case.
Responding to questioning from the defense, Brownback said that he did not think that the Supreme Court had declared the military commissions system illegal in its June 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In Hamdan, the Supreme Court held that because the Uniform Code of Military Justice provision on military commissions had not been complied with, “the rules specified for Hamdan’s trial are illegal.”
“The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over.”
Judge Brownback also indicated both in today’s answers and in prior orders that he will not consider challenges to the military commissions based on constitutional or international law.
When asked what law he would rely on in presiding over the commission he said he would only consider the Military Commissions Act and associated Department of Defense rules and orders.
“The key question going forward is the legitimacy of the system,” Daskal said. “Yet the judge’s comments suggest that he will prevent the defense from raising essential constitutional and international law issues.”
The court set dates for the defense to file motions, but has not decided when the next military commission hearing will be.
UN protests U.S. decision to try Omar Khadr
Harper the great human rights advocate has not objected at all about the trial of Khadr nor about the character of the military tribunals nor has he even taken notice of the fact that Khadr was a juvenile when the alleged crime was committed.
"It also shows the potential for damage to Canada's international reputation as a champion of human rights and leader in efforts to protect children involved in armed conflict."
Harper and many in the Canadian public only care about human rights when it involves good guys such as Burmese monks up against a military dictatorship. Khadr is an acknowledged member of an outspoken Al Qaeda supporting family and there is absolutely no political capital to be gained by taking up his case. Ergo Harper will not complain but side with his buddy George Bush.
The federal government has not protested Khadr's detention or upcoming trial, citing the seriousness of the accusations against him.
UN protests U.S. decision to try Omar Khadr
Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Monday, November 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The United Nations has launched a formal protest with the United States over its decision to try Canadian terrorism suspect Omar Khadr, who was 15 years old when captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, will take up Khadr's case during a meeting Tuesday in Washington with John Bellinger, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior legal adviser.
"She will raise her concerns about the creation of an international precedent where an individual is being tried for crimes with regards to alleged acts committed when he was a child," Laurence Gerard, a spokeswoman for Coomaraswamy, told CanWest News Service.
The UN's decision to complain to the Bush administration about Khadr's upcoming murder trial follows a separate, behind-the-scenes appeal by Coomaraswamy to Canadian officials about the case.
"There were also bilateral [exchanges] with Canada," said Gerard, who would not provide details of a letter dispatched to Foreign Affairs officials in Ottawa.
Khadr, now 21, is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed U.S. army Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan, in July, 2002.
Khadr has been detained since November, 2002, at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is now the only remaining citizen of a western country in detention there.
He faces additional charges of attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material aid to terrorism.
According to Coomaraswamy, Khadr's upcoming trial runs contrary to the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The protocol, which the U.S. ratified in 2002, states persons under the age of 18 years enlisted or conscripted into armed conflict "are entitled to special protection" under the law. Human rights groups argue the U.S. has obligations under the treaty to demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers.
Coomaraswamy "is not going to talk about the case itself. It's not within her mandate. She cannot interfere within the case," said Gerard. "She can raise concerns, and that is what she is going to do."
The legal debate about the significance of Khadr's age has intensified in recent weeks, with his American military lawyer contending Khadr should be spared a war crimes trial because he was a child soldier forced into a combat situation.
But the military judge hearing the case has instructed Khadr's legal team that they cannot raise issues of international law at future pre-trial hearings.
"We look forward to taking this case to trial," said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. "Khadr must be held accountable for his actions in Afghanistan."
Khadr's lawyers said Monday they were buoyed by Coomaraswamy's intervention.
The UN's concern "shows that the international community views Omar as a child soldier, deserving of the rights and protections afforded to former child soldiers under international law," said Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, the military defence lawyer detailed to Khadr's case.
"It also shows the potential for damage to Canada's international reputation as a champion of human rights and leader in efforts to protect children involved in armed conflict."
The federal government has not protested Khadr's detention or upcoming trial, citing the seriousness of the accusations against him.
The case has grabbed renewed attention in recent weeks because of two surprise developments.
Following Khadr's arraignment two weeks ago at Guantanamo, his lawyers alleged the U.S. government had "buried" information about a secret witness with evidence that could prove the Canadian was not an unlawful enemy combatant at the time of his capture.
Then, on Sunday, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes broadcast a 12-minute segment on Khadr that included new video footage allegedly showing him making roadside bombs in Afghanistan. The tape was reportedly seized by American forces following the 2002 battle in which Speer was killed and Khadr wounded.
It's unclear whether the video broadcast by CBS is the same footage that Pentagon prosecutors have repeatedly -- and unsuccessfully -- tried to introduce as evidence at Khadr's pre-trial hearings.
But the Pentagon said neither prosecutors nor the Office of Military Commissions Convening Authority, which organizes the war crimes tribunals, leaked any video to CBS.
"Neither the OMC Convening Authority or the prosecution know who provided the tape," Gordon said.
He added: "We do not discuss potential evidentiary issues, nor is it appropriate to make comparisons to potential evidence which may be raised at trial."
Khadr's defence team contends the Canadian would be the first child prosecuted for war crimes in modern history.
They plan to argue he is being punished for the "sins of his father," Ahmed Said Khadr, an al-Qaida financier who was killed in Pakistan in 2003.
"If Omar is to be prosecuted for a crime, international law requires that he be prosecuted in a regular court, which properly takes into account his age at the time of his alleged offenses," said Kuebler.
"It also shows the potential for damage to Canada's international reputation as a champion of human rights and leader in efforts to protect children involved in armed conflict."
Harper and many in the Canadian public only care about human rights when it involves good guys such as Burmese monks up against a military dictatorship. Khadr is an acknowledged member of an outspoken Al Qaeda supporting family and there is absolutely no political capital to be gained by taking up his case. Ergo Harper will not complain but side with his buddy George Bush.
The federal government has not protested Khadr's detention or upcoming trial, citing the seriousness of the accusations against him.
UN protests U.S. decision to try Omar Khadr
Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Monday, November 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The United Nations has launched a formal protest with the United States over its decision to try Canadian terrorism suspect Omar Khadr, who was 15 years old when captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, will take up Khadr's case during a meeting Tuesday in Washington with John Bellinger, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior legal adviser.
"She will raise her concerns about the creation of an international precedent where an individual is being tried for crimes with regards to alleged acts committed when he was a child," Laurence Gerard, a spokeswoman for Coomaraswamy, told CanWest News Service.
The UN's decision to complain to the Bush administration about Khadr's upcoming murder trial follows a separate, behind-the-scenes appeal by Coomaraswamy to Canadian officials about the case.
"There were also bilateral [exchanges] with Canada," said Gerard, who would not provide details of a letter dispatched to Foreign Affairs officials in Ottawa.
Khadr, now 21, is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed U.S. army Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan, in July, 2002.
Khadr has been detained since November, 2002, at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is now the only remaining citizen of a western country in detention there.
He faces additional charges of attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material aid to terrorism.
According to Coomaraswamy, Khadr's upcoming trial runs contrary to the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The protocol, which the U.S. ratified in 2002, states persons under the age of 18 years enlisted or conscripted into armed conflict "are entitled to special protection" under the law. Human rights groups argue the U.S. has obligations under the treaty to demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers.
Coomaraswamy "is not going to talk about the case itself. It's not within her mandate. She cannot interfere within the case," said Gerard. "She can raise concerns, and that is what she is going to do."
The legal debate about the significance of Khadr's age has intensified in recent weeks, with his American military lawyer contending Khadr should be spared a war crimes trial because he was a child soldier forced into a combat situation.
But the military judge hearing the case has instructed Khadr's legal team that they cannot raise issues of international law at future pre-trial hearings.
"We look forward to taking this case to trial," said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. "Khadr must be held accountable for his actions in Afghanistan."
Khadr's lawyers said Monday they were buoyed by Coomaraswamy's intervention.
The UN's concern "shows that the international community views Omar as a child soldier, deserving of the rights and protections afforded to former child soldiers under international law," said Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, the military defence lawyer detailed to Khadr's case.
"It also shows the potential for damage to Canada's international reputation as a champion of human rights and leader in efforts to protect children involved in armed conflict."
The federal government has not protested Khadr's detention or upcoming trial, citing the seriousness of the accusations against him.
The case has grabbed renewed attention in recent weeks because of two surprise developments.
Following Khadr's arraignment two weeks ago at Guantanamo, his lawyers alleged the U.S. government had "buried" information about a secret witness with evidence that could prove the Canadian was not an unlawful enemy combatant at the time of his capture.
Then, on Sunday, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes broadcast a 12-minute segment on Khadr that included new video footage allegedly showing him making roadside bombs in Afghanistan. The tape was reportedly seized by American forces following the 2002 battle in which Speer was killed and Khadr wounded.
It's unclear whether the video broadcast by CBS is the same footage that Pentagon prosecutors have repeatedly -- and unsuccessfully -- tried to introduce as evidence at Khadr's pre-trial hearings.
But the Pentagon said neither prosecutors nor the Office of Military Commissions Convening Authority, which organizes the war crimes tribunals, leaked any video to CBS.
"Neither the OMC Convening Authority or the prosecution know who provided the tape," Gordon said.
He added: "We do not discuss potential evidentiary issues, nor is it appropriate to make comparisons to potential evidence which may be raised at trial."
Khadr's defence team contends the Canadian would be the first child prosecuted for war crimes in modern history.
They plan to argue he is being punished for the "sins of his father," Ahmed Said Khadr, an al-Qaida financier who was killed in Pakistan in 2003.
"If Omar is to be prosecuted for a crime, international law requires that he be prosecuted in a regular court, which properly takes into account his age at the time of his alleged offenses," said Kuebler.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Military hiding evidence that could clear Khadr: lawyer
These military courts are kangaroo courts in the first place. Khadr's own military lawyer summed the matter up succinctly:
"This is a process that's not designed to be fair; it's is designed to produce convictions," said Mr. Kuebler. "My ultimate hope is that Canada, like Britain, like Australia, like every other western country, will finally (understand) that this process in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the law, is an affront to basic human rights, and that they will take Omar home to face due process in a legitimate system."
There is little hope that Canada will do anything with the likes of Stephen Harper, and Stockwell Day involved. At least Day did not go along with Gonzales et al on Arar but I doubt that he will do a thing about Khadr even though Khadr is a Canadian citizen and other countries have intervened when their citizens have been involved. Harper and Day don't want to be seen as soft on terrorists or even question what is a legal farce.
Thursday » November 8 » 2007
Military hiding evidence that could clear Khadr: lawyer
Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Thursday, November 08, 2007
U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba -- Lawyers for Omar Khadr alleged Thursday that U.S. military prosecutors have a mystery eyewitness who can prove the Canadian terrorism suspect is not an "unlawful enemy combatant" -- a dramatic development that could again derail Pentagon efforts to try Khadr as a war criminal.
At a news conference following Mr. Khadr's arraignment on murder charges at this American military base, defence attorneys said the witness is a U.S. government employee who was present at the July, 2002 firefight in Afghanistan where Khadr was captured.
"This is not something that just came to their attention. It is something that was buried because no one ever looked," said Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military lawyer.
"Our question is: How much other exculpatory evidence is out there behind the black curtain that we can't see?"
Defence attorneys said the lead prosecutor in Khadr's case, Marine Corps Maj. Jeff Groharing, informed them just two days earlier of the existence of a witness who could have "exculpatory evidence" that debunks the Pentagon's claim that the Canadian was illegally fighting American troops.
The still-classified evidence is potentially crucial because U.S. law says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried under the current system of military commissions, established by President George W. Bush and Congress in 2006.
The Military Commissions Act defines an unlawful enemy combatant as a member of the Taliban or al-Qaeda who was "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."
Mr. Khadr is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed army Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan. Mr. Khadr, then 15, was seriously wounded during the battle with U.S. special forces. He faces additional charges of attempted murder, spying, conspiracy and providing material aid for terrorism.
Mr. Khadr, who has been held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo since the fall of 2002, exercised his right to defer entering a plea to the charges.
Military prosecutors declined requests to speak to reporters about the defence team's claim.
"They are going to do their talking in the courtroom," said Lt.-Cmdr. Rick Helmer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions.
Defence attorneys have long complained the legal deck is stacked against Mr. Khadr because of commission rules that hamper their ability to learn of evidence in the possession of prosecutors.
"He has been in custody for how long? Coming up on six years?" said Mike Berrigan, the deputy chief defence counsel for the military commissions. "How we can be on the eve of a hearing to determine (Mr. Khadr's) status, and how we can have newly discovered evidence, is beyond me."
The latest legal twist came as Pentagon prosecutors sought to introduce a videotape they claim shows Mr. Khadr making and planting roadside bombs in Afghanistan.
Army Col. Peter Brownback, the military judge presiding over Khadr's case, refused to allow the tape to be shown, denying prosecutors a public relations coup.
"It is totally outrageous that the prosecution would try to push ahead with a hearing on whether or not Mr. Khadr was an unlawful enemy combatant, while all the time withholding from the defence potentially exculpatory information," said Jennifer Daskal, the senior counter-terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, who was an observer at Thursday's hearing.
"Anyone who has ever gone to law school knows the fundamental legal and ethical rule: The prosecution cannot withhold exculpatory information from the defence."
It was Mr. Khadr's first appearance in a Guantanamo courtroom since June, when Mr. Brownback threw out all charges against the Canadian -- a decision later overruled by a military appeals court.
On Thursday, Mr. Khadr entered the court wearing the white prisoner's uniform given to detainees who are considered "highly compliant" with prison rules.
Mr. Khadr wore a mutton-chop beard and smiled on several occasions at lighthearted comments made by Mr. Brownback.
Asked whether he wanted to be represented by his U.S. military attorney, Mr. Khadr replied: "Yes, sir." At past hearings, Mr. Khadr had expressly refused American legal representation.
Mr. Khadr's lawyers have been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to persuade the Canadian government to intervene with the Bush administration on his behalf. They contend that, after more than five years of false starts and international controversy, the Pentagon is pressuring prosecutors and judges to deliver convictions of Guantanamo detainees.
"This is a process that's not designed to be fair; it's is designed to produce convictions," said Mr. Kuebler. "My ultimate hope is that Canada, like Britain, like Australia, like every other western country, will finally (understand) that this process in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the law, is an affront to basic human rights, and that they will take Omar home to face due process in a legitimate system."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled an earlier version of the military commissions violated international and U.S. law.
Mr. Brownback stirred controversy Thursday when he told the court he did not believe the earlier tribunals were illegal.
The judge also acknowledged he "took heat" from senior Pentagon officials for his June ruling to dismiss charges against Mr. Khadr. But Mr. Brownback told defence attorneys he was never directly reprimanded for the ruling, which temporarily threw the Bush administration's war crimes tribunals into chaos.
"I feel certain that I never (heard complaints from) anyone who has influence over me," Brownback said.
Mr. Kuebler said he believed Mr. Brownback had been subject to "inappropriate external influences" and was "too personally invested in the military commissions process."
But Mr. Brownback rejected defence claims he could not fairly preside over the trial.
"I find I am qualified," said Mr. Brownback.
To date, the Bush administration has only won one conviction of a Guantanamo detainee. Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty and was sent home to serve a nine-month sentence after Prime Minister John Howard intervened on his behalf with Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
"This is a process that's not designed to be fair; it's is designed to produce convictions," said Mr. Kuebler. "My ultimate hope is that Canada, like Britain, like Australia, like every other western country, will finally (understand) that this process in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the law, is an affront to basic human rights, and that they will take Omar home to face due process in a legitimate system."
There is little hope that Canada will do anything with the likes of Stephen Harper, and Stockwell Day involved. At least Day did not go along with Gonzales et al on Arar but I doubt that he will do a thing about Khadr even though Khadr is a Canadian citizen and other countries have intervened when their citizens have been involved. Harper and Day don't want to be seen as soft on terrorists or even question what is a legal farce.
Thursday » November 8 » 2007
Military hiding evidence that could clear Khadr: lawyer
Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Thursday, November 08, 2007
U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba -- Lawyers for Omar Khadr alleged Thursday that U.S. military prosecutors have a mystery eyewitness who can prove the Canadian terrorism suspect is not an "unlawful enemy combatant" -- a dramatic development that could again derail Pentagon efforts to try Khadr as a war criminal.
At a news conference following Mr. Khadr's arraignment on murder charges at this American military base, defence attorneys said the witness is a U.S. government employee who was present at the July, 2002 firefight in Afghanistan where Khadr was captured.
"This is not something that just came to their attention. It is something that was buried because no one ever looked," said Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military lawyer.
"Our question is: How much other exculpatory evidence is out there behind the black curtain that we can't see?"
Defence attorneys said the lead prosecutor in Khadr's case, Marine Corps Maj. Jeff Groharing, informed them just two days earlier of the existence of a witness who could have "exculpatory evidence" that debunks the Pentagon's claim that the Canadian was illegally fighting American troops.
The still-classified evidence is potentially crucial because U.S. law says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried under the current system of military commissions, established by President George W. Bush and Congress in 2006.
The Military Commissions Act defines an unlawful enemy combatant as a member of the Taliban or al-Qaeda who was "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."
Mr. Khadr is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed army Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan. Mr. Khadr, then 15, was seriously wounded during the battle with U.S. special forces. He faces additional charges of attempted murder, spying, conspiracy and providing material aid for terrorism.
Mr. Khadr, who has been held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo since the fall of 2002, exercised his right to defer entering a plea to the charges.
Military prosecutors declined requests to speak to reporters about the defence team's claim.
"They are going to do their talking in the courtroom," said Lt.-Cmdr. Rick Helmer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions.
Defence attorneys have long complained the legal deck is stacked against Mr. Khadr because of commission rules that hamper their ability to learn of evidence in the possession of prosecutors.
"He has been in custody for how long? Coming up on six years?" said Mike Berrigan, the deputy chief defence counsel for the military commissions. "How we can be on the eve of a hearing to determine (Mr. Khadr's) status, and how we can have newly discovered evidence, is beyond me."
The latest legal twist came as Pentagon prosecutors sought to introduce a videotape they claim shows Mr. Khadr making and planting roadside bombs in Afghanistan.
Army Col. Peter Brownback, the military judge presiding over Khadr's case, refused to allow the tape to be shown, denying prosecutors a public relations coup.
"It is totally outrageous that the prosecution would try to push ahead with a hearing on whether or not Mr. Khadr was an unlawful enemy combatant, while all the time withholding from the defence potentially exculpatory information," said Jennifer Daskal, the senior counter-terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, who was an observer at Thursday's hearing.
"Anyone who has ever gone to law school knows the fundamental legal and ethical rule: The prosecution cannot withhold exculpatory information from the defence."
It was Mr. Khadr's first appearance in a Guantanamo courtroom since June, when Mr. Brownback threw out all charges against the Canadian -- a decision later overruled by a military appeals court.
On Thursday, Mr. Khadr entered the court wearing the white prisoner's uniform given to detainees who are considered "highly compliant" with prison rules.
Mr. Khadr wore a mutton-chop beard and smiled on several occasions at lighthearted comments made by Mr. Brownback.
Asked whether he wanted to be represented by his U.S. military attorney, Mr. Khadr replied: "Yes, sir." At past hearings, Mr. Khadr had expressly refused American legal representation.
Mr. Khadr's lawyers have been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to persuade the Canadian government to intervene with the Bush administration on his behalf. They contend that, after more than five years of false starts and international controversy, the Pentagon is pressuring prosecutors and judges to deliver convictions of Guantanamo detainees.
"This is a process that's not designed to be fair; it's is designed to produce convictions," said Mr. Kuebler. "My ultimate hope is that Canada, like Britain, like Australia, like every other western country, will finally (understand) that this process in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the law, is an affront to basic human rights, and that they will take Omar home to face due process in a legitimate system."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled an earlier version of the military commissions violated international and U.S. law.
Mr. Brownback stirred controversy Thursday when he told the court he did not believe the earlier tribunals were illegal.
The judge also acknowledged he "took heat" from senior Pentagon officials for his June ruling to dismiss charges against Mr. Khadr. But Mr. Brownback told defence attorneys he was never directly reprimanded for the ruling, which temporarily threw the Bush administration's war crimes tribunals into chaos.
"I feel certain that I never (heard complaints from) anyone who has influence over me," Brownback said.
Mr. Kuebler said he believed Mr. Brownback had been subject to "inappropriate external influences" and was "too personally invested in the military commissions process."
But Mr. Brownback rejected defence claims he could not fairly preside over the trial.
"I find I am qualified," said Mr. Brownback.
To date, the Bush administration has only won one conviction of a Guantanamo detainee. Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty and was sent home to serve a nine-month sentence after Prime Minister John Howard intervened on his behalf with Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Justice denied
This case shows the state of justice in the USA as far as suspected terrorists are concerned even when they are obviously innocent. In El-Masri's case it was mistaken identity. El-Masri has met a stone wall in the US. The same excuse of national security was used as has been used against Arar in the US. In Canada the government refuses to release documents to Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and of course it has done zilch to have Khadr sent back to Canada. The US refuses to do it. Khadr was kept in prison without charge while still just a juvenile. The Canadian govt. apparently thinks that Khadr will get a fair trial at a military tribunal in Guantanamo.!
Justice Denied
By William A. Cohn
10/26/07 "ICH" --- - It was a case of mistaken identity. It could have happened to any one of us.
And yet, in 2007 it is hard for us to imagine the ongoing nightmare endured by Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen whose story helped to expose the ugly underbelly of the US-led global war on terror. On October 9th, Masri’s last hope at getting justice in the US was dashed when the Supreme Court declined to review the lower court rulings dismissing his case based on the government’s assertion that to give Masri his day in court would require the disclosure of state secrets and thus harm US national security.
His Kafkaesque plight brings to mind the inquisitorial “justice” meted out by totalitarian regimes. That the High Court refused to hear his case without comment is all too fitting for the silence and secrecy Masri encountered in his search for answers in the US. Now, Masri must turn to the European Court of Justice in the hopes that Europe will afford him the justice he was denied in America. Since the US is not a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Masri should bring suit against Germany for its complicity in his mistreatment in order to obtain an adjudication affirming the mistreatment he received at the hands of US agents.
The Supreme Court decision, which the New York Times called a “Supreme Disgrace,” in essence accepted the Bush administration’s contention that the judiciary must ‘trust us’ that allowing Masri’s case to proceed would harm national security. But the constitutional rule of law is based on distrust, not trust. That is why, recognizing as axiomatic that ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ the Constitution established a system of checks and balances by means of a separation of powers aimed at accountability. By rubber-stamping claims of executive privilege, the judiciary shirks its constitutional duty, and thus fails us all.
Masri’s story has been one of the most widely reported cases of so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’, the practice of secretly abducting suspected terrorists and indefinitely detaining them, often in countries known to torture prisoners. On December 6, 2005 Masri filed a lawsuit in US federal court against former CIA director George Tenet, and others, alleging that the defendants, acting as agents of the US government, kidnapped, wrongfully imprisoned, abused and tortured him. The 44-year-old married father of five alleges that on December 31, 2003 he was forcibly abducted while on holiday in Macedonia, detained incommunicado, handed over to US agents, then beaten, drugged, and taken to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated in a cruel and inhuman manner. His allegations have been investigated and substantiated by the German state prosecutor and the Council of Europe, the continent’s human rights watchdog.
It seems that Khaled El-Masri was thought to be Khalid al-Masri, the name given to the CIA by the Hamburg-based terror suspect Ramzi Binalshibh as the person who helped Mohammed Atta’s 9/11 cabal make contact with a senior Qaeda member in Germany. Likely, the CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ produced false ‘intelligence’ and they chased a fictive person with reckless abandon. The validity of Masri’s German passport was never checked before he was flown to Afghanistan. German Chancellor Merkel told the press that US Secretary of State Rice acknowledged to her the mistake with Masri. Rice’s staffers subsequently denied any such admission having been made. Rice, like all Bush officials, has refused to comment on Masri’s claims.
Masri’s lawsuit sought an apology and monetary compensation. US District Judge T.S. Ellis III held that Masri’s “private interests must give way to the national interest in preserving state secrets,” adding that if the allegations are true “all fair-minded people must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country’s mistake and deserves a remedy.” Indeed, there is no justice without a remedy for a legal wrong. But following the Supreme Court refusal to review his case, it is now a certainty that Masri will never obtain a remedy through the US legal system.
The Masri case reveals much of what has gone wrong in the ‘war on terror.’ The Supremes let stand the March 2nd Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which upheld Judge Ellis’ dismissal of the lawsuit because it could expose state secrets. These decisions have brought widespread disbelief, disappointment and disgust. Following the Fourth Circuit ruling, ACLU attorney Ben Wizener said: “This is doubly insulting. Everyone knows that Mr. El-Masri was a mistaken victim of the rendition program. He is now a victim of the misuse of the state-secrets privilege.”
Masri’s is not the only such case to be so dismissed. For instance, Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen taken to an Edgar Allan Poe-like secret prison in Syria, also had his case thrown out of US federal court by a state secrets ruling. The Canadian government substantiated Arar’s claims and offered an apology and compensation for its role in his ‘rendition’. Sadly, the current US administration lacks the strength to ever apologize.
The once-obscure state secrets privilege has been expanded and used ever-more since it was created in the 1953 case US v. Reynolds. Information declassified half a century later reveals that the state secrets claim in the Reynolds case was a lie – the government was seeking to hide its mistakes and protect against embarrassment, not to protect the country’s security. This revelation has fueled calls for reform by legal scholars, public interest groups and the American Bar Association. Since 1993, judges have required in-camera review of the disputed documents underlying state secrets claims in less than an eighth of cases, opting instead for blind deference.
On October 11th, the Times opined, “this administration has repeatedly relied upon [the state secrets doctrine] to avoid judicial scrutiny of its lawless action . . . courts need to apply a healthy dose of skepticism to state secrets claims.” Recently, parts of the judiciary have awakened. Federal judges have denied state secrets claims, noting that to defer to a blanket assertion of state secrets would be to abdicate their duty. On October 10th, a federal judge, citing domestic and international law prohibiting torture, barred the transfer of Guantanamo Bay inmate to Tunisia, marking the 1st time the judiciary has blocked the government transfer of a terror detainee. Perhaps this signals a new willingness to question claims of executive privilege.
As part of a community working to instill respect for the rule of law in post-communist Europe, these are challenging times. America should lead by example in assisting new democracies to root out corruption and establish transparency and accountability in governance. Yet its refusal to cooperate with German prosecutors in Masri’s case, the Canadians in Arar’s case, or the Italians in a rendition investigation there, erodes international cooperation. And revelations of secret torture memos, secret prisons, and secretive government under a novel ‘unitary executive’ theory undermine efforts advocating a rule of law agenda.
We owe Khaled El-Masri our gratitude for helping to expose human rights abuses committed in our name. By taking his claim to the European Court of Justice Masri can shed additional light on the self-defeating post-9/11 tactics employed in the US and Europe. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Masri was turned back at the airport without explanation when he flew to the US to appear at his first court hearing, and in the end he was denied review by the Supreme Court without comment. Mr. Masri is reportedly experiencing psychiatric problems today. Let us hope that he has the strength to continue his search for truth and fairness with the European Court of Justice. For we all have a stake in his struggle for justice.
William A. Cohn, who reported on the Masri case in the spring 2006 issue of The New Presence, is a writer, lawyer and lecturer at the University of New York in Prague
Justice Denied
By William A. Cohn
10/26/07 "ICH" --- - It was a case of mistaken identity. It could have happened to any one of us.
And yet, in 2007 it is hard for us to imagine the ongoing nightmare endured by Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen whose story helped to expose the ugly underbelly of the US-led global war on terror. On October 9th, Masri’s last hope at getting justice in the US was dashed when the Supreme Court declined to review the lower court rulings dismissing his case based on the government’s assertion that to give Masri his day in court would require the disclosure of state secrets and thus harm US national security.
His Kafkaesque plight brings to mind the inquisitorial “justice” meted out by totalitarian regimes. That the High Court refused to hear his case without comment is all too fitting for the silence and secrecy Masri encountered in his search for answers in the US. Now, Masri must turn to the European Court of Justice in the hopes that Europe will afford him the justice he was denied in America. Since the US is not a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Masri should bring suit against Germany for its complicity in his mistreatment in order to obtain an adjudication affirming the mistreatment he received at the hands of US agents.
The Supreme Court decision, which the New York Times called a “Supreme Disgrace,” in essence accepted the Bush administration’s contention that the judiciary must ‘trust us’ that allowing Masri’s case to proceed would harm national security. But the constitutional rule of law is based on distrust, not trust. That is why, recognizing as axiomatic that ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ the Constitution established a system of checks and balances by means of a separation of powers aimed at accountability. By rubber-stamping claims of executive privilege, the judiciary shirks its constitutional duty, and thus fails us all.
Masri’s story has been one of the most widely reported cases of so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’, the practice of secretly abducting suspected terrorists and indefinitely detaining them, often in countries known to torture prisoners. On December 6, 2005 Masri filed a lawsuit in US federal court against former CIA director George Tenet, and others, alleging that the defendants, acting as agents of the US government, kidnapped, wrongfully imprisoned, abused and tortured him. The 44-year-old married father of five alleges that on December 31, 2003 he was forcibly abducted while on holiday in Macedonia, detained incommunicado, handed over to US agents, then beaten, drugged, and taken to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated in a cruel and inhuman manner. His allegations have been investigated and substantiated by the German state prosecutor and the Council of Europe, the continent’s human rights watchdog.
It seems that Khaled El-Masri was thought to be Khalid al-Masri, the name given to the CIA by the Hamburg-based terror suspect Ramzi Binalshibh as the person who helped Mohammed Atta’s 9/11 cabal make contact with a senior Qaeda member in Germany. Likely, the CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ produced false ‘intelligence’ and they chased a fictive person with reckless abandon. The validity of Masri’s German passport was never checked before he was flown to Afghanistan. German Chancellor Merkel told the press that US Secretary of State Rice acknowledged to her the mistake with Masri. Rice’s staffers subsequently denied any such admission having been made. Rice, like all Bush officials, has refused to comment on Masri’s claims.
Masri’s lawsuit sought an apology and monetary compensation. US District Judge T.S. Ellis III held that Masri’s “private interests must give way to the national interest in preserving state secrets,” adding that if the allegations are true “all fair-minded people must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country’s mistake and deserves a remedy.” Indeed, there is no justice without a remedy for a legal wrong. But following the Supreme Court refusal to review his case, it is now a certainty that Masri will never obtain a remedy through the US legal system.
The Masri case reveals much of what has gone wrong in the ‘war on terror.’ The Supremes let stand the March 2nd Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which upheld Judge Ellis’ dismissal of the lawsuit because it could expose state secrets. These decisions have brought widespread disbelief, disappointment and disgust. Following the Fourth Circuit ruling, ACLU attorney Ben Wizener said: “This is doubly insulting. Everyone knows that Mr. El-Masri was a mistaken victim of the rendition program. He is now a victim of the misuse of the state-secrets privilege.”
Masri’s is not the only such case to be so dismissed. For instance, Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen taken to an Edgar Allan Poe-like secret prison in Syria, also had his case thrown out of US federal court by a state secrets ruling. The Canadian government substantiated Arar’s claims and offered an apology and compensation for its role in his ‘rendition’. Sadly, the current US administration lacks the strength to ever apologize.
The once-obscure state secrets privilege has been expanded and used ever-more since it was created in the 1953 case US v. Reynolds. Information declassified half a century later reveals that the state secrets claim in the Reynolds case was a lie – the government was seeking to hide its mistakes and protect against embarrassment, not to protect the country’s security. This revelation has fueled calls for reform by legal scholars, public interest groups and the American Bar Association. Since 1993, judges have required in-camera review of the disputed documents underlying state secrets claims in less than an eighth of cases, opting instead for blind deference.
On October 11th, the Times opined, “this administration has repeatedly relied upon [the state secrets doctrine] to avoid judicial scrutiny of its lawless action . . . courts need to apply a healthy dose of skepticism to state secrets claims.” Recently, parts of the judiciary have awakened. Federal judges have denied state secrets claims, noting that to defer to a blanket assertion of state secrets would be to abdicate their duty. On October 10th, a federal judge, citing domestic and international law prohibiting torture, barred the transfer of Guantanamo Bay inmate to Tunisia, marking the 1st time the judiciary has blocked the government transfer of a terror detainee. Perhaps this signals a new willingness to question claims of executive privilege.
As part of a community working to instill respect for the rule of law in post-communist Europe, these are challenging times. America should lead by example in assisting new democracies to root out corruption and establish transparency and accountability in governance. Yet its refusal to cooperate with German prosecutors in Masri’s case, the Canadians in Arar’s case, or the Italians in a rendition investigation there, erodes international cooperation. And revelations of secret torture memos, secret prisons, and secretive government under a novel ‘unitary executive’ theory undermine efforts advocating a rule of law agenda.
We owe Khaled El-Masri our gratitude for helping to expose human rights abuses committed in our name. By taking his claim to the European Court of Justice Masri can shed additional light on the self-defeating post-9/11 tactics employed in the US and Europe. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Masri was turned back at the airport without explanation when he flew to the US to appear at his first court hearing, and in the end he was denied review by the Supreme Court without comment. Mr. Masri is reportedly experiencing psychiatric problems today. Let us hope that he has the strength to continue his search for truth and fairness with the European Court of Justice. For we all have a stake in his struggle for justice.
William A. Cohn, who reported on the Masri case in the spring 2006 issue of The New Presence, is a writer, lawyer and lecturer at the University of New York in Prague
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