Janet Hamlin
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
September 29, 2012 – Globe and Mail
For the first time in 10 years and three months, Omar Khadr’s fate rests outside the hands of politicians and military personnel.
Toronto-born Mr. Khadr left Guantanamo Bay’s detention centre in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning via U.S. military aircraft. He set foot on Canadian soil just over three hours later.
Janet Hamlin
Saturday, July 14 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyers are asking a federal court to order Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to make up his mind on whether to bring the Canadian convict back to serve time in Canada.
In an application filed on Friday, John Norris and Brydie Bethell asked judges to review what they argue is an unreasonable delay in deciding on Mr. Khadr’s transfer application. The 25-year-old was eligible to return to serve the rest of his sentence in Canada as of October, 2011.
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
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
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.
Monday, August 16, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
GUANTANAMO BAY — There have been calls to close Guantanamo Bay’s notorious detention centre since the first blindfolded, shackled detainees walked onto the base’s tarmac in January, 2002. But what do you do with the 176 people remaining behind the razor wire and green mesh?
As the camp’s population slowly dwindles and cases against those the U.S. government plans to prosecute inch forward, that question is becoming tricky to answer.
Who poses a risk – to the United States, or elsewhere? Who would be in danger if transported to their country of origin? What do you do if a detainee would rather stay, or if you can’t find a country willing to accept released prisoners?
Thursday, August 12, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
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.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — A Guantanamo Bay military judge has dealt a blow to Canadian Omar Khadr’s legal case: All the confessions the prosecution wanted to submit at his war-crimes trial are fair game.
The decision, coming late Monday afternoon, supports the prosecution’s argument that threats of gang rape and alleged abuse in one interrogation do not taint confessions in another.
It dramatically strengthens the most serious charge against Mr. Khadr – that of murdering a U.S. Army sergeant in an Afghan firefight at the age of 15. If convicted, the 23-year-old could face life imprisonment.
Now, after formally entering a not guilty plea on his client’s behalf, Mr. Khadr’s lawyer will have to convince a panel of military jurors that the evidence against Mr. Khadr is “poisoned,” unreliable and that the case falls apart without it.
Monday, August 9, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
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.”
Saturday, July 24, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
A court ruling that would have obliged Ottawa to repatriate Omar Khadr or intercede on his behalf while he’s in U.S. custody meddled with the federal government’s right to call the shots on foreign affairs, a federal appeal court judge says.
Federal Court of Appeal judge Pierre Blais’ ruling released this week effectively clears the way for the 23-year-old Canadian detainee to face trial in Guantanamo Bay next month.
Mr. Justice Russell Zinn of the Federal Court earlier this month gave the government a week to come up with a list of ways to help protect Mr. Khadr’s rights. Ottawa appealed that ruling, and this week, Judge Blais sided with the government. Judge Zinn’s order “results in a kind of judicial supervision over any diplomatic action that Canada may take in relation to [Mr. Khadr],” he wrote in the court’s decision.
“I am not at all convinced that Justice Zinn does effectively have the power to ‘impose a remedy.'”
Monday, July 19, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
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.”
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
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.
a business of misfits 