Tag: Omar Khadr (page 3)

The Canadian press is doing a good job of covering the pre-trial hearings underway this week at Guantanamo. As I wrote Sunday, one pertains to Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, who was captured at age 15 and has been held ever since. The defense is targeting Omar's interrogations and scored a partial victory today in getting the judge to order that correspondence between the U.S. and Canada about Omar be turned over.

The other hearing is that of Afghan Mohammed Jawad. Jawad was 16 when he was captured. His hearing yesterday did not go smoothly.

The military's 90 page document outlining charges against all charged detainees is here(pdf).

The ACLU is monitoring the hearings. In related news, (no link yet, received by e-mail) the ACLU is filing a lawsuit today "to force the government to release un-redacted transcripts in which 14 prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody."

I've been writing about Canadian Omar Khadr, the 15 year old seized on the battlefield in Afghanistan (gruesome picture here) and held at Bagram and Guantanamo ever since. He's now 21 and facing trial by a Pentagon military tribunal. Another hearing in his case is set for next week. He's the only Westerner still at Guantanamo.

The U.S. charges he threw a grenade at an American medic in an alleged al-Qaida compound, killing him. Omar was shot three times by U.S. soldiers and blinded in one eye.

The Toronto Star today has a long excerpt from a new book about him by Toronto Star journalist Michelle Shephard, Guantanamo's Child. It chronicles his first days in U.S. custody. Part 2, detailing how he was used as a human mop, is here.

More....

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.

Omar Khadr turned 21 in Guantanamo this week. He's been detained there since he was 15.

A military judge threw out the charges against him on jurisdictional grounds in June. Another judge later upheld that decision.

Today, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review issued its first opinion. It reinstated the charges against Omar.

The ruling reverses a military judge's June 4 ruling that the tribunal system created by Congress did not have authority to try detainees unless they were first determined to be unlawful enemy combatants.

The New York Times has this more in-depth report on the ruling.

My all-time favorite quote on Omar Khadr is by Jeanne D'Arc at her now defunct Body and Soul blog:

He's eighteen years old. When he was captured in Afghanistan, he was fifteen -- a child turned into a soldier by parents from hell. And our government's response to this victim of child abuse was to abuse him further.

His lawyers have alleged he was tortured.

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Alex Koppelman at Salon compares the prosecution of Jose Padilla to that of a home-grown terrorist tried the old-fashioned way and explains why the Padilla method is likely to fail.

That the prosecution of Crocker ended so successfully points to what may ultimately be the most significant difference between the Crocker and Padilla cases. Crocker was investigated, prosecuted and detained in the old, pre-9/11 way, and his case has held up even as the Padilla prosecution has self-destructed.

The Crocker case was brought in by old-fashioned police work. A confidential informant passed on a tip and a sting was conducted by an FBI agent careful to make sure the plan was real and not a creation of the government. No lawyer for Crocker has ever filed an allegation that Crocker was tortured. He wasn't even cuffed or shackled at his arraignment. The case against Padilla, on the other hand, came about through anything but normal means, and that has been its downfall.

The Wall St. Journal (free link) examines the problems the Pentagon has encountered with the military commission trial of Canadian teenager Omar Khahr.

I see Omar Khadr, Child of Jihad, much different than the military.

Via Crooks and Liars, Rolling Stone has a very long feature article on Omar Khadr, who as I wrote here, here and here, comes from a long line of al Qaeda fighters and has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since he was 15.

As Jeanne of Body and Soul wrote a few years ago:

The problem is, Omar Khadr is as much a victim of these people as a member of the family. He's eighteen years old. When he was captured in Afghanistan, he was fifteen -- a child turned into a soldier by parents from hell. And our government's response to this victim of child abuse was to abuse him further.

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul has an excellent post today on the latest in the torture scandals. The middle section of her post talks about 18 year old Canadian Omar Khadr who has been imprisoned for 3 years, since age 15. This week the Toronto Star called for a trial by impartial tribunal or his release.

Last year we wrote a long piece on Omar's family--which stemmed from an article titled Married to the Jihad. It depicted a reporter's interview with two Canadian al Qaeda wives, one of whom was Omar's mother, who expressed their expectation and approval of their sons joining the call to fight.