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Khadr’s lawyer out of hospital, fit to resume trial

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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.

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The Guantanamo detainee dilemma

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Monday, August 16, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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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?

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The jury who will decide Omar Khadr’s fate

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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.

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Khadr’s confessions ruled admissible

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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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.

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As Omar Khadr gets ready to face military court, a letter to his lawyer highlights his angst and sense of persecution

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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.”

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Canadian judge’s ruling clears way for Khadr trial

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Saturday, July 24, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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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.'”

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Khadr agrees to be defended by U.S. lawyer

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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.”

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Inside Gitmo, no signs of shutting down

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — The man – bearded, dressed in white – approaches the fenced-off, glassed-off door to his cell block.

“Solve our problems,” reads the sign he holds up above his head, black block letters on white background. “Respond to our requests.”

He’s silent, or at least appears so behind the layers separating him from the cluster of journalists he’s approaching.

Nevertheless, the carefully orchestrated calm of the tour teeters for a moment. It’s the closest the choreographed walk through two Guantanamo Bay prison camps comes to veering off course into the unscripted.

“All right, that’s it, we should go,” say several guards gathered around the half-dozen reporters.

And the tour moves along, through the rotunda inside Guantanamo Bay’s Camp VI.

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Defiant Khadr says he will boycott ‘sham process’

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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.

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Khadr’s move throws his hearings into doubt

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Monday, July 12, 2010 – Globe and Mail
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GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL STATION, CUBA — In a putty-coloured air-traffic-centre-turned-courtroom Monday morning, the fate of Omar Khadr’s military trial, and the evidence the prosecution can present, will be up to Omar Khadr and his judge.

Military Justice Colonel Patrick Parrish will call on the Canadian charged with terrorism to confirm a statement he submitted Wednesday firing the American lawyers who have been conducting his defence at the military tribunal here.

That could leave the 23-year-old, who was 15 and severely wounded when U.S. forces apprehended him in Afghanistan and charged him with murder and supporting terrorism, to fend for himself in court.

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