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Omar Khadr: At Long Last a Day in Court
by C. L. Cook
Today, (Wed. Mar. 19, 2008) Canada's Supreme Court ruled a motion filed by lawyers for "Canadian Taliban" Omar Khadr, currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, can proceed for the court's consideration.
They will hear arguments and rule on whether the treatment meted out to Khadr violates his rights under international law and whether his incarceration is contrary to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
They will also hear arguments questioning the ability of American Justice to meet internationally required benchmarks for fairness in the case.
The challenge comes as American authorities are in the early
stages of the detainee's trial, (technically Khadr is ruled by U.S.
authorities to be an "illegal combatant") for the murder of an American
sergeant, killed during the battle that led to Khadr's capture.
Omar
Khadr's lawyers challenge that charge and are requesting the release
of Canadian documents regarding their client's capture and subsequent
interrogation. Those documents remain undisclosed in any but heavily
redacted form, but preliminary evidence indicates Khadr was not the
only survivor of the engagement, as previously reported, so may not
have been the one alleged to have thrown the hand grenade that killed
Special Forces Sergeant Christopher Speer.
For their part, the U.S. Federal Justice Department filed against the Khadr motion, contending it was not the business of the Canadian court to rule on matters of American concern. The Canadian Supreme Court disagreed and will begin hearing testimony next week.
It is the second failure in
less than a week for U.S. government lawyers trying the case; last
week, during hearings of the Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay, a
defense petition for the deposition of testimony of a Lt. Colonel, (identified only
as, LTC "W.") present at the scene of Khadr's capture was deemed by the
commission as admissible despite the prosecution's claim, under rule
702(c)3(a) of the Rules for Military Commissions, the testimony
would make public classified information and so should not be entered
for "good cause."
For Khadr it is the first glimmer of hope his nearly
six year-long ordeal in captivity could soon be coming to an end.
Just and Good Cause
Way
back in the beginning, in the days after the twin towers fell in New
York City, Omar Khadr was a Canadian teenager living with his father
and brothers in Afghanistan.Khadr's dad was a friend of Osama bin
Laden, the man named by the Bush administration as being behind the
heinous 9/11 attacks. Because the then-ruling Taliban regime refused to
extradite bin Laden without compelling evidence connecting him to the
crime he was being accused of complicity in, America launched a massive
bombing campaign across Afghanistan, followed by a limited land
invasion, fronted by U.S. special forces and various intelligence
agencies.
No declaration of war was filed in the American congress, though
international "sanction" for the U.S. retaliation, based on the U.N.'s
Article 51, a provision allowing nations suffering "on-going" attacks
from a foreign nation the right to self-defense, (decried as a specious
interpretation of 51 by anti-war protesters) "allowed" the launch of 'Operation
Enduring Freedom.'
From his Madrasa, (religious
school) in Afghanistan, Omar Khadr could not be aware of the frenzied
diplomacy going on behind the scenes of America's impending invasion
and he likely was not aware of the millions of people around the world
marching and sending petitions to the American administration in efforts to dissuade Bush's predictably violent response, but when news
of the invasion's commencement reached them, Omar's future was clear: He would be a soldier of the Jihad, fighting the infidel beside his
brothers and father.
The Taliban government had fallen six months before, its leaders scattered throughout the mountainous regions of the southeast of Afghanistan and into the so-called Tribal territories of north-western Pakistan, when U.S. forces reached Ab Khail, the small hill-town where Khadr and company were taking refuge.
As Jeff Tietz of
Rolling Stone relates, U.S. forces spotted the fighters and sent
translators into their compound to gain a surrender, but the
translators were killed.
A ferocious aerial bombardment was ordered,
and a firefight followed. As the Americans moved through the ruins of
the bombed out compound "mopping up," a wounded survivor tossed a
grenade, the explosion killing one of them.
Khadr was found
seriously wounded, bleeding from two bullet wounds through his back and
chest and shrapnel wounds to his face and eye. The diminutive fifteen
year-old was later reported to have begged soldiers, "kill me."
But,
the "sole survivor" of that day's fighting was not killed. Instead, Omar
Khadr was stitched up and sent to Bagram Airbase.
Bagram is to
Afghanistan what Abu Ghraib is to Iraq; the sprawling base outside
Kabul having a dedicated detention and interrogation wing, where all the
sordid methods made famous in Baghdad's gruesome monument to both
Saddam Hussein's and his successor's brutality are too practiced
against its hapless inhabitants, if only less reported. There, the
child-soldier was "interrogated" as he recovered from his wounds, itself a violation of the Geneva Convention ratified by the U.S.
Khadr's defense has maintained their client was tortured, made to swear confessions for the killing of Sergeant Speer, and threatened with rape and other atrocities should he fail to comply.
The threats must have been
an easy thing for the youngster to believe, as he found himself bagged,
tagged, and sent off to Guantanamo's infamous Camp X-Ray.
Khadr's
testimony about his treatment at the hands of his captors, made during March
2003 meetings he had with individuals claiming to be Canadian
government officials, makes for chilling reading.
Khadr says;
- "I showed them my injuries and told them that what I had told the Americans was not right and not true. I said that I told the Americans whatever they wanted me to say because they would torture me."
Khadr then says;
- "The Canadians called me a liar and I began to sob. They screamed at me and told me that they could not do anything for me."
In 2005, the Canadian government forbade further interrogations at Guantanamo by their agents, claiming the prison failed to meet Canadian standards under the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms; but, it has so far failed to secure, or even attempted to gain, Omar Khadr's freedom from the Guantanamo Bay facility, as both Britain and Australia managed to do for their respective citizens held there.
It is hoped now the Supreme Court hearings in Canada will shed new light on the great suffering of Canada's child-prisoner, while the order demanding delivery by April fourth to the Military Commission in Guantanamo of LTC "W.'s" deposition could clear Omar Khadr of the charge of murder that has seen him spend his teenage years confined to this century's equivalent of those abominable black holes inhabited by the enemies of Empire in times past.
And perhaps these two legal rulings are a signal it is time for the turning of stones; a time to shed light on the situations of all those other, uncounted 'Omar Khadrs' out there, suffering anonymously the depravities of America's new notion of justice.
Comments (1)
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Everyone I talk to however, feels its completely disgusting the way he has been treated. How many people even support the war at all? Its an illegal occupation, but no one wants
to end up on the losing side of a battle...
at least we have anonymous comments to speak some truth? I tried posting a message of support on the National Post blog, but it was never accepted. Where is the support people?