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| US blasts sympathetic view of Omar Khadr |
| 2006-01-11 |
| The U.S. military lawyer prosecuting Omar Khadr said Tuesday the Canadian teenager is no fresh-faced innocent who was making s'mores at al-Qaida training camps, but a terrorist who deserves to be convicted by a special military tribunal for killing a U.S. medic. Chief prosecutor Col. Moe Davis blasted "nauseating" sympathetic portrayals of detainees like Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured after a July 2002 firefight. Authorities could have sought the death penalty but didn't because Khadr was a juvenile, Davis said, breaking his silence on the case a day before the teen's first appearance at a pre-trial hearing that his lawyers tried in vain to stop. "You'll see evidence when we get into the courtroom of the smiling face of Omar Khadr as he builds bombs to kill Americans," he said. "I don't think it's a great leap to figure out why we're holding him accountable," added Davis, charging that Khadr and others picked up the tools of terrorism from al-Qaida. "When these guys went to camp, they weren't making s'mores and learning how to tie knots." Khadr, now 19, is expected to enter a plea Wednesday in a contentious tribunal that's proceeding despite motions filed by his defence lawyers and a pending decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the system for foreign terror suspects is constitutional. A member of a Toronto family with alleged ties to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, Khadr is charged with murder and other counts arising from the death of medic Christopher Speer and has been held here at the U.S. military detention centre in Guantanamo Bay for the last 39 months. Few have been allowed to see Khadr, who is nearly blind in one eye and has spent most of his time in isolation at Camp Delta, a barbed-wire enclave on the U.S.-controlled southeast coast of Cuba, near the historic naval base. One of his American lawyers, Muneer Ahmad, called it "astounding, shameful and appalling" that the U.S. military is prosecuting the first-ever war crimes case of a juvenile, saying he has "reliable evidence" that Khadr has been tortured. And he called on Canada to denounce the tribunal system set up by President George W. Bush, saying it allows confessions extracted by torture and doesn't afford anywhere near the kind of due process of criminal civil trials. "Canada has a decision to make," said Ahmad, "either to publicly condemn the military commissions as fundamentally unfair . . . or to remain silent on the matter and complicit in the sham trial." It was unclear whether Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, would attend the hearing. Ahmad, who saw Khadr on Monday, said he suffers from chronic health problems and has participated in hunger strikes but is in "reasonably good spirits given what he's been subjected to." Khadr's lawyers and human rights groups closing monitoring the case say he's been constantly interrogated, shackled in painful stress positions for many hours until he's soiled himself and subjected to extreme temperatures. Davis rejected allegations of widespread torture as standard tactics used on captured terrorists. The detention centre has been open for four years. "Some of them describe (conditions) as being much better than what they ever had before." He also vigorously defended the tribunal system for terrorism suspects captured in the Afghanistan war, saying "we've got nothing to be ashamed of." "We want the world to see that we're extending a full, fair and open trial to the terrorists that have attacked us. We're extending rights to them that they've never contemplated." The Khadr family has provoked intense debate in Canada. Each of the five Khadr siblings, all of whom are Canadian citizens, has at one time or another been separately accused or investigated for alleged links to terrorism. Their father, Egyptian-born Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, was an accused al-Qaida financier killed in a battle with Pakistani forces in 2003. Davis referred to the family's connection to bin Laden, claiming the Khadrs always spent Tuesday's feast of the sacrifice, or Eid al Adha, with the terror mastermind. "So I'm sure (Omar's) upset that he's here and not in Afghanistan." Davis argued that the new threat posed by al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists has necessitated changes in military law, just as there were revisions for the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the Second World War. "Some say we're making up the rules as we go along but the law has to adapt to today's environment," said Davis. "We're here to prosecute unlawful conduct, not persecute religious beliefs." It's particularly galling, said Davis, that rights organizations are calling some 500 detainees the "patriots of Guantanamo" who are standing up for their rights, yet they delay their military tribunals by every means possible. "I hate to quote Bart Simpson as an authority but damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's the situation that we face." Only nine of the detainees have been formally charged with war crimes and three of the tribunals have been stayed pending the Supreme Court decision, expected by June. There are a couple dozen other cases in the works, said Davis, with charges expected in the coming months. Some will likely be completely open, but others will be restricted in parts for security reasons. Khadr will be formally represented by Capt. John Merriam, a U.S. army judge advocate with no trial experience, "even on charges of jaywalking," said Ahmad, who is asking that he be replaced by someone with more experience. "It would be laughable if the stakes weren't so high," he said. The tribunal is headed by Col. Robert Chester. "Understand that the room is not a court and the presiding officer is not a judge and this is not a full and fair trial," said Ahmad. "No matter how they dress it up, the military commission is still a sham." U.S. authorities say Khadr threw a grenade that killed Speer in an alleged al-Qaida compound. The teen was shot three times by American soldiers. "Thanks to the American medics who stepped over their dead friend and tended to Mr. Khadr, he's alive today," said Davis. Khadr was formally charged last November with murder, attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy. He's been designated an "unprivileged belligerent" who didn't have the right to wage war. In what Ahmad has called a "crass political move," word of the charges came the same day the U.S. high court said it consider the tribunals faced by Khadr and eight others so far. "The timing has not been at its best," admitted Davis. "In that particular case, it was already in the works." Preliminary hearings took place for four of the men in 2004, including Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for bin Laden whose case sparked the Supreme Court challenge. Khadr is expected to attend the hearing in his first public appearance since he was captured and then sent to Guantanamo in October 2002 just after he turned 16. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, a Yemeni, is also facing a pre-trial hearing on a conspiracy charge. U.S. authorities allege he provided protection to bin Laden and was a propagandist for al-Qaida. Al-Bahlul is insisting he doesn't want the military-appointed defence lawyer and would rather defend himself. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |