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ACLU to Monitor Thursday's Gitmo Hearing on Omar Khadr

The ACLU will be at Guantanamo tomorrow to monitor the military commission hearing of Omar Khadr. The process so far:

Khadr, now 21, was 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is the first detainee to face a military commission since June when charges against him and a Yemeni prisoner, Salim Hamdan, were thrown out by military judges who said the commission lacked proper jurisdictional authority to prosecute them. The military judges ruled that the two defendants had not been designated “unlawful enemy combatants” as required under the Military Commission Act signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

The U.S. government appealed the dismissal of the cases, and the newly established U.S. Court of Military Commission Review – a panel of three military officers appointed by the Pentagon – reinstated the charges in September by deciding that the military commission judges have the authority to decide whether detainees should be deemed “unlawful” enemy combatants. Despite an appeal filed by Khadr’s lawyers with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the military judge in Khadr’s case, Col. Peter Brownback, will hear the case Thursday.

Omar is a Canadian teenager and child of Jihad, captured in Afghanistan and sent to Gitmo where he alleges he was tortured.

In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Six Years Later (1.00 / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Fri Nov 09, 2007 at 08:04:15 AM EST
    Military defense lawyers said that on the eve of the hearing, military prosecutors told them for the first time of a government witness who might be able to help a detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, counter the war crimes charges on which he was arraigned Thursday.

    [snip]

    "It is an eyewitness the government has always known about," said Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler of the Navy, Mr. Khadr's chief military lawyer, who questioned why the military was only now informing the defense.

    [snip]

    "How we can have newly discovered evidence is beyond me," since prosecutors have been pursuing charges against Mr. Khadr for years, Mr. Berrigan said. The lawyers said they could not describe the witness because prosecutors told them the information was classified.

    NYT via Laura Rozen


    This morning, NPR reported this teenager's father (none / 0) (#1)
    by oculus on Wed Nov 07, 2007 at 05:12:08 PM EST
    is a "well-respected" al Queda financier.  Another report stated the courtroom is open to the public, if the public can obtain permission to go to Gitmo.

    I wonder whether the source (none / 0) (#2)
    by Repack Rider on Wed Nov 07, 2007 at 07:37:09 PM EST
    of that information is the same as the one that assured us the Saddam had WMD.

    Believing this crap year after year is like Charlie Brown and Lucy's football.  SURELY they won't lie to me THIS TIME.  And then we find out that they did.

    I'm going with Reagan on this: "Trust, BUT VERIFY."  Except for the trust part.

    Parent

    Are you disputing (1.00 / 0) (#3)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 07:38:00 AM EST
    the Canadians?

    the US?

    him?

    his lawyers?

    All of the above?

    Parent