Guantanamo's last Western detainee returned to Canada

[AntiPAPunk]

Guantanamo's last Western detainee returned to Canada

In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, Canadian defendant Omar Khadr attends a hearing in the courthouse for the U.S. military war crimes commission at the Camp Justice compound Credit: REUTERS/Janet Hamlin/Pool

By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba | Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:27pm EDT

(Reuters) - The youngest prisoner and last Westerner held in the Guantanamo military base, Omar Khadr, was sent to finish his sentence in his native Canada on Saturday, the Canadian government said.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Khadr, who was a 15-year-old fighting in Afghanistan when captured in 2002, had been flown from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a military base in Trenton, Ontario and transferred to the province's Millhaven maximum-security prison.

Khadr's case has been controversial both in Canada and abroad given his age when he was captured, the nature of his detention and hearing, and the reluctance of Canadian officials to accept his return.

"I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognizes the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration," Toews said in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A U.S. war crimes tribunal in 2010 sentenced Khadr, now 26, to 40 years in prison, although he was expected to serve just a few more years under a deal that included his admission he was an al Qaeda conspirator who murdered a U.S. soldier.

Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murdering American Army medic Christopher Speer with a grenade in a 2002 firefight, conspiring with al Qaeda to commit terrorist acts, making roadside bombs to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan, spying on American military convoys and providing material support for terrorism.

Khadr was the first person since World War Two to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. He was the youngest prisoner still at Guantanamo, but younger boys were previously held there.

Canadian-born Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior al Qaeda member who apprenticed the boy to a group of bomb makers who opened fire when U.S. troops came to their compound. Khadr was captured in the firefight, during which he was blinded in one eye and shot twice in the back.

HAPPY TO BE HOME

"He's finding it hard to believe that this has finally happened," said John Norris, one of Khadr's lawyers, according to a Canadian Press report. "His spirits are good. He is very, very happy to be home."

In a written statement, Toews said Canada received Khadr's application for transfer from the United States on April 13, 2012. He said U.S. officials assured Canada it would receive a videotape copy of an interview with Khadr, but it, along with other videotapes of interviews and unedited reports, was not sent until this month.

Former Canadian ambassador Gar Pardy, however, said Canada's Conservative government, which cultivates an image of being tough on crime, dragged out the transfer.

"I think the government was mainly very mean-spirited in how it handled the case," Pardy said to CTV News.

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that Canada breached Khadr's rights by sending intelligence agents to interrogate him in Guantanamo Bay in 2003 and 2004 and sharing the results with the United States. Khadr's continuing detention meant his rights were still being infringed, the judges ruled. The top court also said that Canada was not obliged to repatriate him, however.

Toews said he remains concerned that Khadr "idealizes" his father and denies Ahmed Khadr's association with al Qaeda. The Canadian public safety minister said he is also troubled by how "radicalized" Khadr has become from his time in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that it transferred Khadr to Canada, leaving 166 detainees at Guantanamo.

In the 2008 presidential election campaign, President Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo prison during his term, but that pledge has gone unfulfilled amid security concerns among Americans and opposition from Congress, which enacted laws making it more difficult to transfer prisoners from Guantanamo.

The transfer represents progress, but the Guantanamo prison should close immediately, said Suzanne Nossel, Amnesty International USA's executive director.

Canadian authorities should also investigate Khadr's allegations of torture while in the prison, she said.

"Canada now has the chance to right some of these wrongs."

Khadr's sentence will expire on October 30, 2018.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson in Toronto and Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Bill Trott and Sandra Maler)

 

[AntiPAPunk]

Factbox: Last Western prisoner from Guantanamo returns to Canada

Sat Sep 29, 2012 11:52am EDT

(Reuters) - Omar Khadr was a Canadian teenager when he was captured in Afghanistan, fighting for al Qaeda. He was repatriated to Canada on Saturday after being held by the United States for 10 years at the detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba.

Here are some facts about him:

* Omar Ahmed Khadr was born in Toronto on September 19, 1986, and was the last citizen of a Western nation among the 167 foreign captives held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo.

* Khadr was 15 when he was gravely wounded and captured during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound near the Afghan city of Khost in July 2002. Now 26, Khadr has spent 10 years locked up with adult prisoners at Guantanamo.

* His trial in 2010 was the first war crimes tribunal since World War Two to prosecute someone for acts allegedly committed as a child.

* Khadr was accused of murdering U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer with a hand grenade during the battle in Afghanistan and making roadside bombs for use against U.S. forces. As part of a deal to limit his sentence, he pleaded guilty to all five charges against him - murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda, providing material support for terrorism and spying on U.S. forces.

* Under the 2010 plea deal, he was to serve one more year at Guantanamo and then seven years in Canadian custody. His repatriation was delayed for nearly a year with the U.S. and Canadian governments blaming each other for the delay.

* A military judge ruled that Khadr's confessions to interrogators could be used as evidence against him, rejecting defense arguments that they were illegally coerced through torture and cruelty. A U.S. interrogator acknowledged trying to scare Khadr with tales of gang rape and death, while others said Khadr was hooded and chained to a wall at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. But the judge said none of Khadr's incriminating statements arose from those incidents and ruled that there was no credible evidence he had been tortured or mistreated.

* Khadr is the son of Ahmed Said Khadr, an alleged al Qaeda financier and confidant of Osama bin Laden who was killed in a shootout with Pakistani security forces in 2003. The U.S. military says the elder Khadr sent Omar and his other sons to al Qaeda training camps to learn how to use guns, grenades and other explosives.

* Khadr was the only person charged with killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

 

[Yukimura Sanada]

Last Western detainee at Gitmo returns to Canada
ROB GILLIES, Associated Press
Updated 6:34 p.m., Saturday, September 29, 2012

FILE - This undated photo shows Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, a Canadian, taken before he was imprisoned in 2002 at the age of 15. A decade after Khadr was pulled near death from the rubble of a bombed-out compound in Afghanistan, the Canadian citizen set foot on Canadian soil early Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012, after an American military flight from the notorious prison in Guantanamo Bay. Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and was eligible to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal. Canada's conservative government took almost a year to approve the transfer. Photo: Canadian Press / AP

TORONTO (AP) — The last Western detainee held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay returned to Canada Saturday after a decade in custody following his capture in Afghanistan at age 15 after being wounded in a firefight with U.S. soldiers, officials said.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that 26-year-old Omar Khadr arrived at a Canadian military base on a U.S. government plane early Saturday and was transferred to the Millhaven maximum security prison in Bath, Ontario.

The son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and was eligible to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal.

But Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government had long refused to request the return of Khadr, the youngest detainee held at Guantanamo. The reluctance was partly due to suspicions about the Khadr family, which has been called "the first family of terrorism."

The U.S. Defense Department confirmed the transfer in a statement and said 166 detainees remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.

The Toronto-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured in 2002 in Afghanistan, and has spent a decade at the Guantanamo prison set up on the U.S. naval base in Cuba to hold suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He received an eight-year sentence in 2010 after being convicted of throwing a grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a 2002 firefight.

"His head is spinning a bit and it's going to be a real adjustment for him, but at the same time he is so happy to be home," John Norris, Khadr's Canadian lawyer, said after speaking with his client.

"He can't believe that it is finally true. He simply can't. For very good reason he was quite fearful that the government would not follow through on its word and he's pinching himself right now not believing that this government has finally kept its word," he said.

Norris said Khadr would be eligible for parole as early as the summer of 2013. He said Khadr's return to Canada comes 10 years too late.

Toews said the U.S. government initiated Khadr's transfer and suggested that Canada had little choice but to accept him because he is a Canadian citizen. It will be up to Canada's national parole board to release him, Toews said.

"Omar Khadr is a known supporter of the al-Qaida terrorist network and a convicted terrorist," Toews said.

Toews called for "robust conditions of supervision" if Khadr is granted parole. Toews said in his written decision that he reviewed all the files forwarded by the U.S. government and said the parole board should consider his concerns that Omar "idealizes" his father and "appears to deny "Ahmed Khadr's lengthy history of terrorist action and association with al-Qaida."

Toews also said that Omar Khadr's mother and sister "have openly applauded" his father's "crimes and terrorist activities" and noted that Omar has had "little contact with Canadian society and will require substantial management in order to ensure safe integration in Canada."

"I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognizes the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration," Toews said.

Norris said it is regrettable that the minister is trying to influence the parole board.

"Most of what he has said there is simply not true. It's part of the stereotype of Omar that this government has been disseminating from the beginning," Norris said.

He added that once the Correctional Service "will get to know Omar" they will "recommend appropriate conditions."

Defense attorneys have said Khadr was pushed into fighting the Americans in Afghanistan by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an alleged al-Qaida financier whose family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy.