Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
June 26, 2008 By Mike Melia, Associated Press
A Canadian judge ruled Wednesday that the U.S. military's treatment of a teenage detainee at Guantánamo Bay violated international laws against torture.
The Federal Court judge, Richard Mosley, said efforts to prime Toronto-born detainee Omar Khadr for interrogation sessions with visiting Canadian agents, described in a 2004 document, broke human rights laws including the Geneva Conventions.
Mosley did not disclose the technique but said the document should be made public because it is relevant to Khadr's allegations that he was mistreated in U.S. custody.
''While it may cause some harm to Canada-U.S. relations, that effect will be minimized by the fact that the use of such interrogation techniques by the U.S. military at Guantánamo is now a matter of public record and debate,'' the judge wrote.
U.S. Defense Department officials said the government would not discuss specifics of the case because it is currently before a military judge.
Defense lawyers for Khadr, who was captured in 2002 at age 15, sought the release of documents related to his interrogations by Canadian agents to help defend him against a murder charge before a war-crimes tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Canada's top court ruled last month that Khadr has the right to partial access to the documents. It was up to Mosley to weight the government's security concerns and determine what materials it should be obligated to release.
The practice criticized by the judge was described in a U.S. military document outlining ''steps taken by the Guantánamo authorities to prepare the applicant for the Canadian visit'' in March 2004, according to the ruling.
Mosley also chastised the interrogator from Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, saying Canada ''became implicated'' when the agent proceeded to meet Khadr despite learning of the efforts to prime the prisoner.
Khadr, the son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, is scheduled to face trial Oct. 8 for allegedly lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier after a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military says it plans to prosecute about 80 detainees at Guantánamo, where it holds roughly 270 men on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda or the Taliban. So far none of the cases have gone to trial.
June 26, 2008 By Mike Melia, Associated Press
A Canadian judge ruled Wednesday that the U.S. military's treatment of a teenage detainee at Guantánamo Bay violated international laws against torture.
The Federal Court judge, Richard Mosley, said efforts to prime Toronto-born detainee Omar Khadr for interrogation sessions with visiting Canadian agents, described in a 2004 document, broke human rights laws including the Geneva Conventions.
Mosley did not disclose the technique but said the document should be made public because it is relevant to Khadr's allegations that he was mistreated in U.S. custody.
''While it may cause some harm to Canada-U.S. relations, that effect will be minimized by the fact that the use of such interrogation techniques by the U.S. military at Guantánamo is now a matter of public record and debate,'' the judge wrote.
U.S. Defense Department officials said the government would not discuss specifics of the case because it is currently before a military judge.
Defense lawyers for Khadr, who was captured in 2002 at age 15, sought the release of documents related to his interrogations by Canadian agents to help defend him against a murder charge before a war-crimes tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Canada's top court ruled last month that Khadr has the right to partial access to the documents. It was up to Mosley to weight the government's security concerns and determine what materials it should be obligated to release.
The practice criticized by the judge was described in a U.S. military document outlining ''steps taken by the Guantánamo authorities to prepare the applicant for the Canadian visit'' in March 2004, according to the ruling.
Mosley also chastised the interrogator from Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, saying Canada ''became implicated'' when the agent proceeded to meet Khadr despite learning of the efforts to prime the prisoner.
Khadr, the son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, is scheduled to face trial Oct. 8 for allegedly lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier after a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military says it plans to prosecute about 80 detainees at Guantánamo, where it holds roughly 270 men on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda or the Taliban. So far none of the cases have gone to trial.