A U.S. military judge ruled Friday that the American government must
reveal the names and notes of those who interrogated Canadian Omar
Khadr after he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002. The Toronto-born
teenager has been detained at the Guantanamo Bay military base, facing
charges of throwing a grenade that killed one American soldier and
injured another. His lawyers claim interrogators used torture to
pressure himinto making self-incriminating statements.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/03/1 ... trial.html
Judge grants Khadr defence request for details of interrogations
Last Updated: Friday, March 14, 2008 | 4:51 PM ET
A U.S. military judge ruled Friday that the American government must reveal the names and notes of those who interrogated Canadian Omar Khadr after he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002.
Khadr's legal team has argued that the information is key to determining whether the Toronto-born man was pressured into making incriminating statements through torture during questioning at an Afghanistan air base.
Omar Khadr, shown in a file photo from around the time he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has been detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay since 2002.
(Canadian Press) If extracted through torture, the defence wants Khadr's comments stricken from the record.
The ruling is a key victory for the legal team of Khadr, now 21, who is charged with murder in the death of a U.S. soldier during a gun battle in Afghanistan in 2002. He also faces charges of spying, conspiracy and supporting terrorism.
Since his capture at age 15, he's been held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The lawyers claim their client has been questioned more than a hundred times, sometimes under conditions that constitute torture.
Col. Peter Brownback, the judge presiding over the military tribunal, also ordered an on-site commander who wrote a report a day after the July 28, 2002, gun battle must speak with Khadr's legal team before the beginning of the trial, the CBC's Bill Gillespie reported from Guantanamo Bay.
The ruling means Khadr's scheduled May 5 trial date will be delayed at least into the summer or even later.
Khadr's lawyers have requested they be given the identities of interrogators plus hundreds of pages of notes they wrote while questioning Khadr at a U.S.-run detention centre at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.
Defence alleges gun battle report altered
Khadr has been quoted as making several incriminating statements during that period of questioning, including that he wanted to kill a lot of U.S. soldiers. He also is alleged to have said that the Taliban were offering a $1,500 bounty for each U.S. soldier.
Court documents later revealed interrogators at the air base used attack dogs to terrorize prisoners and hung prisoners by their wrists.
The defence team also sought the names of witnesses who were present at the 2002 Afghan battle that led to the death of U.S. medic Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer.
Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's defence lawyer, told a pre-trial hearing on Thursday that a military commander "retroactively altered" the gun battle report to redirect blame for the soldier's death to Khadr.
"What we have is, as I said at the outset, is this manufactured story about Omar's participation in the event, or this myth about Omar's participation in the event, which appears to have been manufactured at some point during his detention," Kuebler said.
Kuebler alleged that the day after the gun battle, July 28, 2002, a U.S. on-site commander identified only as "Colonel W" wrote a report on his soldiers' attack on the compound where Khadr and three other Islamist fighters were holed up.
In the report, the commander said a U.S. soldier killed a man identified as the suspect in the slaying, Kuebler said.
But, he alleged, the report was revised months later, under the same date, to say a U.S. fighter had only "engaged the assailant." Kuebler said the "updated" document was presented to him by prosecutors.