Omar Khadr

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Omar Khadr

Postby sparrow » Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:02 am

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.
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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:29 am

Some progress at least. But it's an outrage that he's being tried at all. He should be treated as a child soldier.
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Postby Holland » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:40 am

It is an outrage that he is being tried. One bullet would have been far easier.
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Postby vagabond » Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:07 pm

How did he end up in Afghanistan in the first place? Not sure I'd exactly sell him a one-way ticket at 14 or 15 if I were travel agent.

I'm not sure how one would try him now. We've caught suspects in the murder case that was posted on the BFC a week or so ago. One kid 21, the other 17. The 17 year old is also being held for the murder of a Duke grad student from January (or around there). He was already on probation, but had charges of breaking and entering, carjacking, etc. And 17. He'll more than likely spend the rest of his life in jail.

In that context, how does one treat a 15 year old that is either willingly or unwillingly part of an armed political movement? I would think the 15 yr old "soldier" should probably get a more lax sentence the 17 yr old gangbanger.

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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:48 pm

The Paris Commitments to protect children from unlawful recruitment or use by armed forces or armed groups of 2007 say that they should be released and reintegrated into family, community and civilian life. Not taken to Bagram and interrogated with or without torture, then taken to Guantanamo and locked up indefinitely and then subjected to a show trial.
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Postby vagabond » Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:26 pm

Ah, but what's this guy's story? Did he join up willingly? I think that makes a difference. I think from 12-16 I was pretty gung-ho about blowing shit up.
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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:00 pm

He was with his father who was with al-Qaeda. It doesn't matter what his wishes were, he was too young. He should be sent to join the remains of his family in Canada or rehabilitated in a children's unit. His treatment is just plain wrong.
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Postby vagabond » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:01 pm

I think rehabilitation would probably be the better bet.
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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:04 pm

From what I've read about his mother and sister[s?] (a while back, so not sure of the details), they'd soon talk all that jihadi crap out of him (though I expect his treatment over the last 6 years has been reinforcing it). He's a boy, cruelly misled and misused by his father and then with the whole weight of the US [in]justice system bearing down on him. Give him a break. Seeing as they don't have special camps to help ex-child soldiers in the US as they do in Africa, they'd probably just send him to yet another penal institution, which is hardly likely to straighten him out either.
Shes never interfered with me. I have no complaints about her.
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Postby vagabond » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:26 pm

When I think "rehabilitation" I picture people who care, a constructive environment, psychologists, etc, not Clockwork Orange. I don't really see prisons as being helpful for anything other than criminals getting a chance to meet and become butt-buddies with other criminals.
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Postby nowonmai » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:28 pm

He should be sent to join the remains of his family


My thoughts exactly.
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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:04 pm

vagabond wrote:When I think "rehabilitation" I picture people who care, a constructive environment, psychologists, etc, not Clockwork Orange.


You're restoring my hope in the US. They have places like that there then?
Shes never interfered with me. I have no complaints about her.
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Postby Bouncer » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:14 pm

So, givehim a pat on the head then for engaging the US Military in combat and killing one and wounding another?

Umm.. no.

But here's the real question Penta et al:

What is the magic age? At what point does a person start becoming responsiblefor his own actions? If you'd punish this boy for stealing a goat, or a piece of candy, and then NOT punish him for killing and maiming, I have to ask, aren't you being inconsistent? Aren't you in fact telling him that murder is okay, but property crimes are not.

He wasn't forced at gunpoint or while being drugged, his family wasn't being held hostage or murdered in front of his eyes, and he was old enough to know what he was doing and why.

He was at least 15 and possibly 16 years of age at the time. Would you be so lenient on a 15 year old chav who took a brick to someones head for their wallet or watch?

I find your viewpoint full of soppy, smarmy, fake empathy. He's not an ignorant savage boy who could neither read nor write and who killed by accident. He was old enough to fight, to kill, to rape and to know that the Koran forbids such things. He is on videotape planting landmines, who don't care WHO they kill.

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Postby Penta » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:21 pm

Bouncer wrote:So, give him a pat on the head then for engaging the US Military in combat and killing one and wounding another?

You don't know that. You must have read the reports about evidence tampering.

And anyway, what he did or didn't do is beside the point. If he was indoctrinated into jihad by his father, and since birth, what choice did he have? If he was being attacked in his cave by US forces, why wouldn't he try to fight back, if he could? I would, you would. It would be legitimate self-defence by anyone in those circumstances. The boy needs help, not further trauma.
Shes never interfered with me. I have no complaints about her.
Same here.
Mega ditto.
I met her once and I found her to be a nice lady. Not kookey in any way.
Penta has always been gracious, kind and very sane in all my interactions with her.
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Postby Woodsman » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:22 pm

Penta wrote:Some progress at least. But it's an outrage that he's being tried at all. He should be treated as a child soldier.


Tell that to those who were in Somalia a few years back.

How do you treat a child soldier who lobs a grenade at you? A: What Holland said.
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