Captive in Canada

Canada’s inaction in the case of Omar Khadr puzzling, embarrassing

Source: Vancouver Sun - 21-mar-08

The reasons against trying Omar Khadr before a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay keep piling up, yet the Canadian government continues to refuse to do anything about it.

Khadr, who was born in Toronto and is a Canadian citizen, has been held in Guantanamo for more than five years. His trial, on charges of lobbing a grenade that killed U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, has been repeatedly delayed, and is now expected to begin in the next few months.

But new evidence casts doubt on whether Khadr should have been charged in the first place. According to Khadr’s military lawyer, U.S. Navy Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, the U.S. government “manufactured evidence to make it look like Omar was guilty.”

At issue are two documents received by Khadr’s defence team during the discovery process. According to Kuebler, the first document was written on July 28, 2002, one day after a firefight involving Khadr, and reports that a U.S. soldier killed the man believed to be responsible for Speer’s death.

Yet another document, written several months later but also dated July 28, 2002, reports that the U.S. soldier only “engaged,” rather than killed, Speer’s assailant. And since Khadr was the only person found alive in the compound, the revised report implicates him.

This is troubling news in what has already been a troubling case. Khadr has, after all, been held for more than five years without a trial, and is now set to face a military trial that has been criticized by legal groups around the world.

Further, there have been rumours that Khadr and other Guantanamo prisoners were subject to torture, and that the evidence obtained through torture might be used against them.

This alone provides sufficient reason to put a stop to this trial. But there is a much more important reason: Although Khadr is now 21 years old, at the time of the alleged offence, he was 15 — a child according to Canadian, American and international law.

And as Kuebler has said, “It is unprecedented to try a child for war crimes.” Indeed, no international tribunals — not the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, not the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and not the Special Court for Sierra Leone — have prosecuted anyone under 18.

Further, both Canada and the U.S. have expressed their support for the Paris Principles, which state that child soldiers “should be considered primarily as victims of offences against international law.”

And both countries were leaders in the drafting and adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires parties to the protocol to provide assistance for the physical and psychological recovery of child soldiers and to facilitate their social reintegration.

Finally, both countries have provided millions of dollars to aid in the rehabilitation and reintegration of child soldiers in Afghanistan.

Yet when one of the child soldiers happens to be Canadian, the U.S. proceeds with a prosecution and Canada stands idly by.

This is a tremendous embarrassment for Canada, especially given that the British and Australian governments have successfully lobbied the U.S. to repatriate their (adult) Guantanamo-incarcerated nationals.

So Canada’s inaction is as puzzling as it is troubling. Perhaps the government fears upsetting the U.S. and appearing soft in the war on terror.

But in giving in to those fears, Canada risks a much worse fate: That it will be seen worldwide as a nation willing to ignore the rule of law and the rights of children.

Related: Omar Khadr

March 21st, 2008 News | no comments | Email it! |  Print This Post | 81 views