Canadians are watching this new year come in with as much trepidation as celebration. We don’t know who will be prime minister; we can’t guess the price of oil. All we know is this: 2009 isn’t going to be easy.
Only the most hyperbolic of pundits and politicians think we’re heading for a 1930s-style depression. But [...]
Omar Khadr is shown in an interrogation room at the Guatanamo U.S. Naval Base prison while being questioned by members of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/US Department of Defense via The Canadian Press/ file
TORONTO — Calls for Omar Khadr’s repatriation may well be answered in the new year as the incoming U.S. [...]
TORONTO — Plans to put Omar Khadr through pre-trial hearings on an important U.S. public holiday that falls the day before Barack Obama is sworn in as president is a sign of the prosecution’s desperation, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer says.
Khadr is due before a military commission in Guantanamo Bay on Jan. 19 - Martin Luther King [...]
U.S. soldier’s report claims teen was buried under rubble when grenade was thrown
by Michelle Shephard
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA–A report provided by a U.S. soldier casts doubt once more on the Pentagon’s assertion that Canadian captive Omar Khadr threw a grenade that killed an American soldier.
A military court was told for the first time yesterday [...]
But judge won’t allow defence to show court photos of accused buried under debris of collapsed roof during 2002 firefight
OMAR EL AKKAD
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — Omar Khadr could not have possibly thrown the grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a 2002 firefight because he was buried under the rubble of a collapsed roof, his [...]
JANET BAGNALL
Omar Khadr is about to become an orphan defendant. He is the one former child soldier left in the illegal prison set up in Cuba by the U.S. to detain various suspects, bystanders and other individuals randomly selected in its War on Terror.
Khadr is the last citizen of a Western nation - ours - [...]
Both Obama, McCain vowed to close prison at Guantanamo if elected
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA–A U.S. military judge has set Jan. 26 as the new date for Omar Khadr’s war crimes trial – six days after a new administration takes over the White House.
Army Col. Patrick Parrish granted the defence’s request [...]
By Andy Worthington
When is a child not a child? Apparently, when he is Omar Khadr, a 15-year-old Canadian who was shot in the back after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002. Omar has been in U.S. custody ever since, first at a prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, and for the last six years [...]
by Dave Oswald MitchellBrent Erickson
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
[cc 2.0]Graffiti protesting treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Omar Khadr has been held in the US prison since his capture in 2002, when he was 15 years old. Photo: Walt Jabsco
“The shaming of one Canadian has shamed all Canadians.”-Liberal MP Paul Szabo, apologizing in the House of [...]
Omar Khadr’s sister stages hunger strike
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
The sister of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr has started a hunger strike on the lawn of Parliament Hill, saying she hopes her presence serves as a daily reminder to politicians about her 22-year-old brother’s continued incarceration.
But for lawyers and activists who have tried to publicize Khadr’s case [...]
‘Welfare’ reports show how depressed teen turned into `likeable, intelligent young man’
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
The reports read like a diary of his years of incarceration.
Omar Khadr the stubborn teenager. Confused. Depressed. Angry.
From the mundane complaints about food and ill-fitting shoes, to the days when he fears he’s going blind. He has read Life [...]
Leslie Schulman
[JURIST] The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) joined with Lawyers Without Borders [official websites] and six other international legal organizations on Tuesday to call for the return [CBA news release] of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive], in the latest attempt to return Khadr to his native Canada to face charges [...]
A U.S. military judge has postponed the trial of Omar Khadr, a young Canadian man detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the past six years for alleged crimes committed as a teenager.
The trial was supposed to begin next month at Guantanamo Bay, but at a pretrial hearing Thursday the judge announced a schedule change as [...]
TORONTO — A Canadian government representative complained as recently as a few months ago that her efforts to ensure proper medical and other care for Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay were being stymied by his American captors, newly released documents reveal.
The classified accounts of welfare visits by an official from Foreign Affairs show even simple [...]
Steven Edwards , Canwest News Service
U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba - In a last-ditch appeal, lawyers for Omar Khadr will Wednesday ask a U.S. military judge to rethink his refusal to allow the accused Canadian terrorist to undergo independent psychiatric assessment.
Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler says that knowing Khadr’s mental state as he made statements [...]
VIDEO: Guantanamo Bay: A Writer’s Notebook
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
National Security Reporter Michelle Shephard has traveled to Guantanamo Bay a dozen times. She will be there next week to report on a pre-trial hearing for Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr. To see more about what it’s like inside, go to: www.thestar.com/omarkhadr
This time the argument was [...]
By Carol Rosenberg
Click-2-Listen
MIAMI — A former Bush administration official responsible for detainee operations urged the Pentagon on Friday to replace the war court’s top lawyer — an Air Force Reserves general whom three military judges have excluded from portions of military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In the latest ruling, an Army judge said Thursday that [...]
Andrew Gilmore
[JURIST] The military judge presiding over the military commission [JURIST news archive] trial of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday barred US Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann [official profile] from acting as a legal advisor to the commission in Khadr’s trial. In addition to his position as legal [...]
By JOANNE MARINER
“We will continue to bring the world’s most dangerous terrorists to justice,” President George Bush said in 2006, explaining why Congress needed to pass a bill to allow detained terrorist suspects to be prosecuted in military commissions. That same month, the Republican-controlled Congress voted in favor of the legislation that the Administration wanted, [...]
Khadr’s lawyers eye psychiatric evaluation
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA–With just two months left before Omar Khadr goes to trial for alleged war crimes, his lawyers continue to fight to have the case thrown out or delayed until he can have an independent psychiatric evaluation.
At a pre-trial hearing yesterday at the U.S. naval [...]
Judge blasts prosecutors’ ‘glacial-like speed’ at Khadr’s pretrial
David Akin, Canwest News Service
GUANTANAMO NAVAL STATION, Cuba - Canadian Omar Khadr was among the first group of Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged with war crimes only because his case was “sexy” and senior U.S. administration officials believed charging Khadr would help whip up support for the controversial [...]
There’s a lot of media talk about USA versus China in the Olympic Games this year. Many are likening the rivalry to a new Cold War (albeit a sporting one), with China taking the place of Russia.
Others are saying that due to the political differences between the two countries, this is spilling over into the [...]
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Hearings opened Wednesday for two of the youngest detainees held at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an observer with Amnesty International said.
Canadian Omar Khadr and Afghan national Mohammed Jawad were both teenagers when they were arrested in Afghanistan and eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. Their separate hearings began around [...]
Abigail Salisbury
[JURIST] Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] has filed suit [Globe and Mail report; Federal Court of Canada docket] against Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official profile] in an effort to compel Harper to demand his release. Following last month’s discovery of documents [text, PDF] showing that the [...]
The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Lawyers for Omar Khadr filed suit Friday in an effort to compel Prime Minister Stephen Harper to demand the Canadian citizen be repatriated from Guantanamo Bay, where he is due to stand trial for “war crimes” before a U.S. military commission in October.
The suit, filed in Federal Court, argues Canada is [...]
Guantanamo Bay News
