User:Geo Swan/gitmo/Omar Khadr

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'''Omar Khadr''' (born [[September 16]], [[1987]]), is a [[Canada|Canadian]] who was captured by American forces in [[Afghanistan]]. He has been held since in [[Guantanamo Bay]]. == Life in Canada == Omar Khadr. like his five siblings, was born in [[Canada]]. His parents were Canadian citizens. Khadr's neighbours, and the patrons of his grandparents bakery, described Khadr as a particularly sweet child. During most of the time Khadr, his mother, and siblings, were living in Canada, his father [[Ahmed Said Khadr]], was living in and working in Afghanistan. Up until 1995 Ahmed Said Khadr was the field director for a charity, [[Human Concern International]]. His responsibilities for HCI were to supervise the distribution of humanitarian aid. In 1992 Ahmed Said Khadr was wounded by a land-mine, and spent a year back in Canada recovering his health. == Life in bin Laden's compound == Khadr's father moved his family to Afghanistan at this time, where they lived in [[Osama bin Laden]]'s compound, and played with bin Laden's children. Khadr's father has been described as one of bin Laden's senior lieutenants. Omar's older brother [[Abdurahman Khadr]] described being sent to military training camps shortly after his arrival, when he was just eleven years old. All of the Khadr boys are believed to have military training while they were children. == Capture == On July 27, 2002, fourteen year old Khadr was in a compound that was surrounded by US special forces. According to the US version of events, the Americans called on those in the compound to surrender. When they refused a firefight ensued. Sergeant [[Layne Morris]] was injured early in the skirmish. The Americans called in a bombardment. Most press accounts of the skirmish say that Khadr killed a "[[medic]]", implying that he had attacked a noncombatant after giving his surrender. But this is incorrect. Sergeant [[Christopher J. Speer]], was mortally wounded in this skirmish. Sergeant Speer had been trained in a medic. He has been reported to have provided some Afghani children with first aid a few days prior to the skirmish. But, on July 27th Sergeant Speer was leading the squad tasked to comb the ruins for weapons, and evidence of terrorist activity. They believed that all the occupants were dead. Sergant Speer was not serving as a medic that day. Nor had young Khadr pretended to surrender. According to the US account Khadr threw a grenade, which mortally wounded Sergeant Speer, and was promptly shot by Sergeant Speer's comrades, taking two rounds to the chest. And some point during the skirmish Khadr was blinded in one eye. == Accusations against Khadr == A video-tape was found in the ruins showing Khadr planting mines. The Americans say that, under interrogation, Khadr confessed to entering a US occupied section of Afghanistan, for the purposes of surveillance. == Incarceration at Guantanamo Bay == There were other detainees incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay who were still just children. They were kept in a smaller compound, [[Camp Iguana]], where they were treated humanely. They were not required to wear the orange coverals. They were provided with school teachers, and recreation. The BBC interviewed one thirteen year old child detainee, upon his return to Afghanistan. He learned to read at Camp Iguana. The two years he spent there were the only education he had ever had, and he reported being sorry to leave. [[Elaine Chao]] the US [[Secretary of Labor]] [http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/20030507_ILAB_ChildSoldiers.htm has spoken about] the responsibility to give child soldiers special treatment, to provide help for them to re-integrate into society. She has announced $3,000,000 program to help re-integrate child-soldiers in Afghanistan back into Afghan society. But Khadr was not kept with the other child detainees. Khadr was treated as an adult. Khadr has been reported to have been kept in solitary confinement, for long periods of time; to have been denied adequate medical treatment; to have been subjected to ''"[[short shackling]]"'', and left bound, in an uncomfortable ''"[[stress position]]s"'' until he soiled himself. In a press conference on January 16, 2005, Khadr's lawyers described how Khadr's captors took Khadr's still bound body and wiped his hair and clothes in his urine and feces. === Khadr's Combatant Status Review === Khadr's case was reviewed by the [[Combatant Status Review Tribunal]] on September 8, 2004. The review released a one page summary of their conclusions on September 17, 2004. Khadr's lawyers had written him a letter, recommending that he refrain from cooperating with the tribunal, or any questioning conducted without adequate legal representation. The tribunal concluded that Khadr was an "illegal combatant". At the time of his hearing Khadr had not been allowed to meet with any lawyer. === Access to lawyers === A June 15, 2005 article in [[Newsday]] cites [[Muneer Ahmad]]'s experienc as an example as to the difficulties the Pentagon presents to detainees lawyers: The article reported: *Lawyers have to submit all the documents they plan to take with them for security checking. When they arrive they find the documents they need have been redacted, or proscribed. *Lawyers aren't allowed to make use of the internet access available at the base. They have to make handwritten notes. Those notes have to be submitted for security checks, before they can have access to them. *The center where the lawyer's notes are security checked is in Virginia. The newsday articles reports that lawyer's notes from their sessions with their clients have mysteriously gone missing. *Lawyers have to go to the Virginia security center to read their notes. *Lawyers, who have security clearances, still find that they cannot get access to documents they are supposed to be able to access. Several lawyers have had to file Freedom of Information requests to get access to their client's medical records -- which might substantiate their client's claims of beatings and other abuse. Khadr described extensive abusive treatment to Muneer Ahmad. Mr Ahmad found that when he got to the Virginia security center all twenty paragaphs of his notes were redacted. Mr Ahmad's first meeting with Khadr was not until November 2004. Khadr has still not been permitted to speak with the Canadian lawyers who were his family's first choice. === Hunger Strikes === On September 1, 2005, the [[Globe and Mail]] reported that [[Dennis Edney]], one of Khadr's Canadian lawyers [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050901/KHADR01/TPInternational/TopStories reported that Khadr] was participating in a second [[hunger strike]]. Khadr participated in the widespread hunger strike that occurred in late June and July. The Globe article reports that Khadr's first hunger strike lasted 15 days, and that prison authorities administered intravenous fluid. Khadr reported collapsing as he left the Hospital, where-upon his guards administered a brutal beating. On September 11, 2005, [[The Independent]] published an extract from Guantanamo detainee [[Omar Deghayes]]. On July 20, 2005, he wrote about Khadr:[http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article311813.ece] :''Omar Khadr [the Canadian juvenile] is very sick in our block. He is throwing [up] blood. They gave him cyrum [serum] when they found him on the floor in his cell. Galib Fiyhani also.'' === Khadr's complaints === In the most recent report Khadr reports: *Contrary to DoD claims, Khadr reported that the guards are only announcing the call to prayers four times a day, not the five that Islam required. *Khadr reported unhappiness among the prisoners because the call to prayers are being announced by female personnel. *Khadr reports that guards have been disrupting prayer sessions he has been leading. == The Speer/Morris lawsuit == [[Tabitha Speer]], Sergeant Speer's widow, and Sergeant [[Layne Morris]], launched a civil suit against the estate of [[Ahmed Said Khadr]], Omar Khadr's father. They argue that as Khadr was a child, his parents were responsible for his actions, and that since his parents should have kept him from picking up a gun on the battlefield, they were responsible for any wounds he inflicted. Normally, under US law, one can't sue for damages that were caused by "acts of war". Speer and Morris argue that Khadr was engaged in an act of terrorism, not an act of war. They have described the law-suit as an attempt to attack terrorism in its bank account. ==External links== *[http://www.hvk.org/articles/1202/293.html The Good Son], originally published in the [[National Post]], December 28, 2002 *[http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1095436429237_90845629 Khadr teen called an 'enemy combatant'] [[CTV]], September 17, 2004 *[http://ap.lancasteronline.com/4/canada_guantanamo_abuse Lawyers Level Guantanamo Torture Charges] [[Lancaster Intelligencer Journal]], February 9, 2005 *[http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woguan0615,0,2202228,print.story?coll=ny-world-big-pix At Gitmo, still no day in court: How feds avoid hearings for terror suspects — despite Supreme Court ruling], [[Newsday]], June 15, 2005 *[http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2005/08/10/1166595-sun.html Extremist has rights! Federal judge rules visits from CSIS violate Charter rights of Gitmo guest], [[Edmonton Sun]], August 10, 2005 *[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050901/KHADR01/TPInternational/TopStories Canadian teen in Guantanamo on hunger strike, lawyers say], [[Globe and Mail]], September 1, 2005