Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Omar Khadr stands a good chance of having at least two of his five terror convictions overturned. But that probably won’t get him out of prison any sooner.
Dennis Edney
Khadr’s lawyer out of hospital, fit to resume trial
Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson, Omar Khadr's military-appointed lawyer, is pictured speaking to the media in a hangar at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay.
(Photo by Anna Mehler Paperny/Globe and Mail)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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Omar Khadr’s lawyer is out of hospital, is off painkillers and will be able to go to trial once the Canadian detainee’s Guantanamo Bay hearing resumes.
Dates for the trial, postponed for about a month after Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson collapsed in pain during cross-examination, are still up in the air. But witnesses are being asked to clear their day books as part of the complex scheduling that goes into co-ordinating war-court proceedings at the U.S. naval base.
Stephen Xenakis, the retired brigadier-general and a defence-team physician in close contact with Mr. Khadr, is preparing to make his case before the war tribunal. He hopes to convince the seven-person military jury what military judge Colonel Patrick Parrish didn’t believe: that the now 23-year-old Mr. Khadr endured enough physical and psychological torment to traumatize him and render his testimony unusable.
Khadr trial asks jury: Jihadist or scared teen?
Friday, August 13, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY — Omar Khadr was either an enthusiastic teen jihadist who happily planted explosive devices and comforted himself in times of loneliness with thoughts of killing U.S. soldiers.
Or he was a frightened, cowed 15-year-old, dragged by a zealous father to Afghanistan against his will, caught up with a bad crowd, taken captive while gravely wounded and tortured into submission and confession by his captors.
The 23-year-old Canadian’s military jury was presented two contrasting portraits of the young man. Duelling sides of his Guantanamo Bay war-crimes trial sought to trump each other in painting what happened during a protracted 2002 Afghan firefight that left a U.S. army sergeant dead and the then-15-year-old severely wounded in U.S. custody.
But the opening salvos in what promises to be a long battle of competing narratives were cut short Thursday when Mr. Khadr’s military-appointed lawyer passed out during cross-examination, apparently from pain related to gallbladder surgery six weeks ago.
The jury who will decide Omar Khadr’s fate
Thursday, August 12, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY — Omar Khadr’s trial begins in earnest Thursday, with lawyers set to give opening arguments after days of grilling would-be jurors and settling on a seven-person panel to decide the fate of the first person tried in the Obama administration’s war-commissions process.
Next come witnesses for the prosecution and defence; the trial will likely go for weeks before a verdict is reached.
Eight of the original 15 members of Mr. Khadr’s jury pool were dismissed Wednesday, after lawyers made arguments to get rid of potential jurors they worry would not be sympathetic to their arguments.
Prosecution lawyer Jeff Groharing tried to convince military judge Colonel Patrick Parrish to jettison jurors who expressed reservations about Guantanamo Bay, detainee treatment and trying 15-year-olds as adults.
With a polite introduction of the accused, jury selection begins in Khadr trial
Wednesday, August 11, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — A fighter pilot from the first Gulf War; a former military policewoman; a battalion commander who lost troops to an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.
Omar Khadr got his first glimpse of the people who will decide his fate in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom Tuesday. Lawyers for the prosecution and defence spent hours quizzing 15 panel members on everything from their views on al-Qaeda and prosecuting juveniles, to the ages of their children and their military experience.
The session offered a look at the individuals – all members of the U.S. armed forces – who will decide not only the verdict in the 23-year-old Canadian’s case, but also his sentence in the event of a conviction.
As Omar Khadr gets ready to face military court, a letter to his lawyer highlights his angst and sense of persecution
Monday, August 9, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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Sitting in court, heavy brows furrowed, fists propped under bearded chin and black sneakers looking out of place with loose white prison garb, he looks like a profoundly fed-up twentysomething.
But in a letter to his Canadian lawyer earlier this year, the scrawled handwriting and syncopated cadence read like those of a much younger, conflicted individual: “Sometimes there are things you can’t say, but rather write on paper, and even if i were to tell you you wont understand,” it opens. “So anyway here are the things.”
“It seems that we’ve done everything,” he adds later in the letter released recently by the lawyer, “but the world doesn’t get it. … I really don’t want to live in a life like this.”
“I hate being the head of the speer, Dennis.”
Lawyer’s illness delays Khadr trial for a month
Saturday, August 14, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY — Eight years after he was taken into U.S. custody, five years after charges were first filed and just a day after opening arguments, the latest obstacle to Omar Khadr’s war-crimes trial going forward is not a defence motion, a Supreme Court ruling or a president hoping to close Guantanamo Bay. It is one lawyer in a lot of pain.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson, the military-appointed lawyer Mr. Khadr tried to fire last month and the only person authorized to represent him in the trial that could lock him up for life, was to be evacuated from Guantanamo Bay after collapsing in court Thursday.
Khadr agrees to be defended by U.S. lawyer
Monday, July 19, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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Omar Khadr is willing to have his military-appointed U.S. lawyer defend him in court after all, his Canadian lawyer now says.
Calling the military commission a “sham process,” Mr. Khadr had tried to fire all his American lawyers last week – including military-appointed counsel Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson.
Military judge Colonel Patrick Parrish would not let him, and directed Lt.-Col. Jackson to consult his professional bodies, including the Arkansas bar, as to his obligations regarding Mr. Khadr’s defence.
Lt-Col. Jackson’s answer? Not only will he continue representing Mr. Khadr, but says he is “ethically required” to do so.
“Therefore, I intend to provide him with a zealous defence at his trial in August,” he said this weekend.
“Omar Khadr continues to be the victim in this case. I never envisioned a scenario in my career as an Army lawyer that would require me to defend a child-soldier against war crimes charges levied by the United States. I always believed we were better than that.”
Defiant Khadr says he will boycott ‘sham process’
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — After eight years in U.S. custody, Omar Khadr had the floor.
Appearing in a courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Canadian terror suspect publicly explained himself in his own words for the first time Monday morning, condemning the military commission set to try him as a “sham process” so divorced from legal norms that he’s as well trained to defend himself as any lawyer.
“The unfairness of the rules will make a person so depressed that he will admit to any allegations or take a plea offer that will satisfy the U.S. government,” he said.
Guantanamo Bay’s youngest inmate, and its only Canadian, spoke more forcefully and at greater length than ever before. The 23-year-old expressed his contempt not only for the military tribunal, but for a plea deal offered to him within the past month.
Omar Khadr fires his lawyers, cancelling Guantanamo pre-trial hearings
Friday, July 9, 2010
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Omar Khadr’s decision to fire his lawyers days before his next court appearance effectively cancels what was supposed to be a final round of pre-trial hearings for the only Canadian detainee in Guantanamo Bay, and could kill his defence team’s last efforts to suppress evidence they allege was obtained through torture.
Mr. Khadr, whose charges include murder and supporting terrorism, was supposed to begin his trial next month. Now it’s not clear when that will go forward and whether Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when prosecutors allege he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in an Afghan firefight, will be tried in Guantanamo without any real defence counsel.
It also means the Toronto-born Mr. Khadr will make a rare appearance speaking on his own behalf on Monday – unless he decides to boycott proceedings, which he did earlier this year.
a business of misfits 