Tagged: Omar Khadr
Lone holdout
Growing discomfort with the military commission trial of Canadian child soldier Omar Khadr, the only western national still held in the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has apparently propelled the US government to seek a plea bargain in the case. The presiding military judge delayed the trial this week in anticipation of a possible deal.
Why now?
The Toronto Star’s Michelle Sheppard reported Thursday that Omar Khadr’s pending trial “has caused discomfort among some of Obama’s advisers, who are concerned about the fact that he was 15 at the time of the alleged offence.”
Friday’s edition of the New York Times, already posted on the paper’s website, reports that “Obama administration officials have privately expressed dismay about Mr. Khadr’s trial, which they see as undermining their efforts to redeem the reputation of the military commission system.”
Sheppard also notes that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon singled out the Khadr case recently when criticizing the U.S. for not applying ‘international standards of juvenile justice’ traditionally afforded child soldiers.”
Also o Thursday, the Miami Herald quoted a warning from UNICEF Chief Anthony Lake that trying Khadr would set a dangerous precedent:
Lake said in a statement issued Wednesday that recruiting and using children in hostilities is a war crime and those responsible should be prosecuted, but the children involved are “victims, acting under coercion.”
“The recruitment and use of children in hostilities is a war crime, and those who are responsible — the adult recruiters — should be prosecuted,” he said.
“As UNICEF has stated in previous statements on this issue, former child soldiers need assistance for rehabilitation and reintegration into their communities, not condemnation or prosecution.”
Aides to the President of the United States. The Secretary-General of the United States. The US head of UNICEF. This is consensus approaching unanimity. Stephen Harper appears to be the lone holdout still in support of the US plan to put a Canadian child soldier on trial before a military tribunal based on evidence acquired under threat of gang rape.
That’s our PM.
As if to underscore his administration’s support for justice in this form, Harper’s foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, deemed this point in the negotiations an opportune time to issue a statement denying Canada had agreed to let Khadr serve any of his sentence in Canada, as would be allowed under a prisoner exchange treaty between the two countries.
“There is no such agreement,” said a statement from Cannon’s office.
The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson has a good summary.
Lest we forget Omar Khadr
Canadian-born child soldier and torture victim Omar Khadr, the only citizen of a western democracy still held in the US Government detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, went on trial this week in the first war crimes prosecution of a child soldier in US history.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada is the only western country not to ask for the release of its nationals from the illegal prison camp. The Harper government has flouted court orders requiring it to take action in support of Khadr’s civil rights.
The U.N. Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflict warned Monday that the legality of Khadr’s trial is doubtful, and his prosecution sets a dangerous precedent that endangers child soldiers worldwide. Radhika Coomaraswamy asked the United States to halt the trial.
Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, sums up the background to Khadr’s prosecution:
Khadr, then 15 years old, was taken to Bagram near death, after being shot twice in the back, blinded by shrapnel, and buried in rubble from a bomb blast. He was interrogated within hours, while sedated and handcuffed to a stretcher. He was threatened with gang rape and death if he didn’t cooperate with interrogators. He was hooded and chained with his arms suspended in a cage-like cell, and his primary interrogator was later court-martialed for detainee abuse leading to the death of a detainee. During his subsequent eight-year (so far) detention at Guantánamo, Khadr was subjected to the “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program and he says he was used as a human mop after he was forced to urinate on himself.
In closing arguments before the judge’s ruling, Khadr’s sole defense lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, told the judge, “Sir, be a voice today. Tell the world that we actually stand for what we say we stand for.”
The military judge trying Khadr, Col. Patrick Parrish, dismissed the motion without explanation.
Leave Khadr in Guantanamo – reader
Contrarian reader Jon Coates of Halifax has no trouble with the kidnapping, rendition, and indefinite detention without due process to which Omar Khadr, a Canadian juvenile, has been subjected for seven years. He writes:
Omar Ahmed Khadr at age 14, one year before his capture and removal to Guantanamo.
I believe that Khadr is a prisoner of war and should stay right where he is until the war in Afghanistan has run its course, just like any other prisoner of war. As he is also being charged with criminal activity – killing an American medic, a non-combatant – and since he is in American custody for that crime, he should face American justice first. The United States is not some third world dictatorship and I am sure he will receive a fair trial – certainly fairer than he would have received in Afghanistan.
Once guilt or innocence has been established, then the Canadian government might act to have him returned to Canada. Or, as a prisoner of war, he might be repatriated to Afghanistan, the place where he was captured. In that case, he’d better hope the Taliban wins the war.
Well, either Khadr was a soldier and is now a prisoner of war entitled to the protections affording by the Geneva Conventions, or he is a civilian accused of a criminal act and entitled to the protections afforded accused persons under the US Constitution. Instead, for the first four years of his detention, Khadr was not treated as a prisoner of war but as “an enemy combatant,” whom the US denied Geneva protections. The Bush administration also argued that because Guantanamo prisoners were non-citizens held on foreign territory, the US Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to hear their appeals, a contention the court rejected in a 2006 decision.
Two points are missing from Coates’s analysis: First, as a 15-year-old, Khadr was a child soldier, a category civilized countries generally treat as victims not as perpetrators. Second, after widespread and credible accounts of torture inflicted on Guantanamo prisoners, every other western democracy has asked for and received the release of nationals detained there. The Harper government stands alone in its refusal to do so, and is even now appealing a federal court order requiring it to make such a request.
Coates’s faith in Khadr’s prospects for receiving a fair trial in the US no doubt reflect that country’s long and admirable tradition of devising, enshrining, and upholding Constitutional safeguards against police, prosecutorial, and judicial abuse. Whatever you think of its foreign policy, the US has shone a beacon a freedom to the world in this respect. That’s precisely what makes its despicable behavior at Guantanamo so dismaying.
Former Guantanamo detainees speak
The American Civil Liberties Union has released a video in which five former detainees talk about their treatment at the American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. All were eventually released without charge.
As you watch this troubling video, consider the Harper Government’s refusal to request the release of the last citizen of a western democracy still held in Guantanamo: Canadian Omar Khadr, who has been subjected to similar treatment for seven years, since he was 15. The Conservative Government is appealing a Federal Court decision ordering it to request Khadr’s release, as every other western democracy did for its citizens in Guantanamo years ago.
