This is from CBC. Many people will simply write off Khadr's allegations. The article could have noted that there is plenty of corroborating evidence plus the fact that one of his main interrogators has actually been court-martialed and sent to jail for abuse of detainees!
No mention in this article either that other countries such as France have intervened in the case on Kahdr's behalf but not Canada. Harper knows that intervening may please a few lawyers and human rights activists but many Canadians seem to think that given that Khadr is a member of a family of terrorists except for the kid who was a CIA spy that it doesn't matter his trial is a mockery of justice.
Khadr affidavit alleges abuse, rape threats
Court document shows Khadr's first comments since 2002 detention
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 | 4:35 PM ET Comments25Recommend29The Associated Press
Canadian Omar Khadr says U.S. military interrogators in Afghanistan threatened him with rape and treated him harshly, forcing him to make false statements, according to an affidavit released Tuesday.
In this courtroom sketch from June 2007, Canadian Omar Khadr, far left, sits flanked by two civilian and one military lawyer at Guantanamo U.S. Naval Base in Cuba.
(Janet Hamlin/Associated Press)
Khadr, who is accused of killing U.S. medic Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer with a grenade in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, also alleged that guards at the U.S. naval base in Cuba abused him while he was weak from a hunger strike.
He said they kneed him repeatedly in the thighs and grabbed him by pressure points behind his ears, under his jaw and on his neck.
"On a scale of one to ten, I would say the pain was an eleven," Khadr said.
Military censors who checked the affidavit before it was released blacked out Khadr's allegations of how U.S. soldiers inflicted pain on him at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
The Toronto-born Khadr, who was 15 when he was wounded and captured, is expected to go on trial at Guantanamo this summer before America's first war crimes tribunals since the Second World War era. His lawyers say the abuse allegations raise doubts about the government's evidence.
After being taken to Bagram with two gunshot wounds in his back, Khadr said he was questioned by soldiers who sat beside his stretcher. A photograph published by the Toronto Star this month, taken as U.S. soldiers treated Khadr in the aftermath of the firefight, showed he had two gaping exit wounds in his chest.
Two weeks into his detention, Khadr said, he was moved from the hospital directly to an interrogation room.
"During the interrogations, the pain was taking my thoughts away," Khadr said. Most details of his sessions were redacted from the affidavit by censors. Khadr said that on some occasions, soldiers covered his head with a bag and brought barking dogs into the room.
"I figured out right away that I would simply tell them whatever I thought they wanted to hear in order to keep them from causing me (redacted)," Khadr said.
A Pentagon spokesman would not immediately comment on Khadr's allegations.
'Life got much worse for me'
Defence lawyers filed the affidavit ahead of a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo last week. It was released to journalists Tuesday after the military censored it.
Khadr's Navy lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said Khadr's abuse allegations undermine the validity of statements he made while being interrogated.
Khadr, who has been held at Guantanamo since October 2002, said that after telling the Americans there that his previous statements were untrue, "life got much worse for me." The only unredacted portion of the ensuing account says a Navy interrogator pulled his hair and spat in his face.
Khadr, the son of a suspected al-Qaeda financier, is charged with murder in the death of the soldier and is accused of planting mines against U.S. convoys.
He is among the first of roughly 80 detainees the Pentagon plans to prosecute at Guantanamo, which holds about 275 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
© The Canadian Press, 2008
Showing posts with label military tribunals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military tribunals. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Canada not speaking up for Guantanamo detainee.
Harper's silence on this matter is in contrast to his complaints about China who also hold a Canadian citizen they claim is a terrorist. The Liberal government has done nothing either. The Khadr family were certainly involved with Al Qaeda although one of the sons who was released also acted as a spy for the US. Omar has been in Guantanamo since he was 15!
Canada abandoning Guantanamo detainee, lawyers say
Last Updated: Friday, March 16, 2007 | 11:47 AM ET
CBC News
Defence lawyers for U.S. military detainee Omar Khadr say Canada isn't doing enough to protect the rights of one of its citizens.
Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler and Muneer Ahmad, the U.S. military and civilian lawyers for Khadr, are visiting Canada to raise awareness about their client.
Omar Khadr, seen in 2002, faces charges of murder. The U.S. military alleges that he killed an American medic in a grenade attack, which wounded several other American soldiers.
(Canadian Press) The 20-year-old is charged with the death of a U.S. soldier during a grenade attack in Afghanistan five years ago. He is being held at the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They say the fact that Khadr has been held at Guantanamo Bay for five years, while detainees from countries such as the U.K. and Australia have been released, shows Canada isn't doing enough for one of its own.
"One's treatment at Guantanamo varies considerably depending on your citizenship," Ahmad said.
"If you're British at Guantanamo, you get out. That's the historical record there. If you're an American citizen there, you also get out. If you're Canadian, you languish."
Continue Article
Britain refused to let its citizens be tried by the military commissions, while Australia reached a deal to allow an Australian detainee to serve his sentence at home if he's found guilty of attempted murder.
Don't punish him because of his family: lawyer
Ahmed acknowledged that Khadr's family is unpopular in Canada, but said he deserves the same treatment as every other Canadian.
"It's really a challenge for the liberal state of Canada to treat Omar as the individual that he is … and that he is deserving of the treatment that any Canadian citizen would receive," he said.
Kuebler, Khadr's military-appointed lawyer, said Ottawa must step in.
"The engagement by foreign governments whose citizens are detained at Guantanamo Bay is the most effective means of ensuring there is a fair process and … fair treatment," Kuebler said.
The lawyers said they still represented Khadr, even though his mother said last week that her son told her during a phone call he only wanted to be represented by his Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney.
"We take Omar's statements as an expression of his frustration with this process," Kuebler said.
Ahmad said the U.S. defence team has had regular communication with the Canadian government, which has said it accepts American assurances Khadr is being treated humanely. Canada hasn't moved to seek Khadr's extradition and has been silent amid world condemnation of the prison camp.
Controversial tribunals
Khadr's defence team is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the military commission process and will argue that Khadr was legally and emotionally a child at the time he is alleged to have killed Sgt. Christopher Speer, who had a wife and two children.
Khadr's trial could begin within months.
In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that military commissions used to try inmates at Guantanamo Bay were illegal under American and international law.
Four months later, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act, which allows the U.S. government to indefinitely hold foreigners who have been designated "enemy combatants" and use aggressive interrogation tactics.
Khadr and his family have been in the media spotlight since members of the family were captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was shot and killed by Pakistani troops in 2003.
Khadr's older brother, Abdurahman, told CBC his family had ties to al-Qaeda and that he and his brothers attended terrorist training camps.
With files from the Canadian Press
Canada abandoning Guantanamo detainee, lawyers say
Last Updated: Friday, March 16, 2007 | 11:47 AM ET
CBC News
Defence lawyers for U.S. military detainee Omar Khadr say Canada isn't doing enough to protect the rights of one of its citizens.
Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler and Muneer Ahmad, the U.S. military and civilian lawyers for Khadr, are visiting Canada to raise awareness about their client.
Omar Khadr, seen in 2002, faces charges of murder. The U.S. military alleges that he killed an American medic in a grenade attack, which wounded several other American soldiers.
(Canadian Press) The 20-year-old is charged with the death of a U.S. soldier during a grenade attack in Afghanistan five years ago. He is being held at the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They say the fact that Khadr has been held at Guantanamo Bay for five years, while detainees from countries such as the U.K. and Australia have been released, shows Canada isn't doing enough for one of its own.
"One's treatment at Guantanamo varies considerably depending on your citizenship," Ahmad said.
"If you're British at Guantanamo, you get out. That's the historical record there. If you're an American citizen there, you also get out. If you're Canadian, you languish."
Continue Article
Britain refused to let its citizens be tried by the military commissions, while Australia reached a deal to allow an Australian detainee to serve his sentence at home if he's found guilty of attempted murder.
Don't punish him because of his family: lawyer
Ahmed acknowledged that Khadr's family is unpopular in Canada, but said he deserves the same treatment as every other Canadian.
"It's really a challenge for the liberal state of Canada to treat Omar as the individual that he is … and that he is deserving of the treatment that any Canadian citizen would receive," he said.
Kuebler, Khadr's military-appointed lawyer, said Ottawa must step in.
"The engagement by foreign governments whose citizens are detained at Guantanamo Bay is the most effective means of ensuring there is a fair process and … fair treatment," Kuebler said.
The lawyers said they still represented Khadr, even though his mother said last week that her son told her during a phone call he only wanted to be represented by his Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney.
"We take Omar's statements as an expression of his frustration with this process," Kuebler said.
Ahmad said the U.S. defence team has had regular communication with the Canadian government, which has said it accepts American assurances Khadr is being treated humanely. Canada hasn't moved to seek Khadr's extradition and has been silent amid world condemnation of the prison camp.
Controversial tribunals
Khadr's defence team is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the military commission process and will argue that Khadr was legally and emotionally a child at the time he is alleged to have killed Sgt. Christopher Speer, who had a wife and two children.
Khadr's trial could begin within months.
In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that military commissions used to try inmates at Guantanamo Bay were illegal under American and international law.
Four months later, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act, which allows the U.S. government to indefinitely hold foreigners who have been designated "enemy combatants" and use aggressive interrogation tactics.
Khadr and his family have been in the media spotlight since members of the family were captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was shot and killed by Pakistani troops in 2003.
Khadr's older brother, Abdurahman, told CBC his family had ties to al-Qaeda and that he and his brothers attended terrorist training camps.
With files from the Canadian Press
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