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
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.

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Lawyer’s illness delays Khadr trial for a month

Saturday, August 14, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

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.

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