A Federal Court of Appeal in Canada ruled today that the Canadian government must seek the return of a Canadian citizen held in Guantanamo, due to Canadian officials' complicity in interrogating the man under duress.
Omar Khadr has been a US captive for a third of his life. Nearly killed in a fire fight with US forces in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old, he was eventually brought to Guantanamo and finally charged with war crimes. Leaving aside the question of whether fighting back is a “war crime,” the claim that Khadr threw a grenade has been called into doubt.
While the Bush and then the Obama administrations have improvised with a new system of trials for alleged terrorists, Khadr's case has moved forward on rare occasions, only to be stalled indefinitely on other occasions. Meanwhile, more and more evidence has come forward of brutal mistreatment meted out to the captured child soldier, first in Afghanistan and then in Guantanamo.
The governing Conservative Party in Canada has resisted calls by human rights organizations and opposition parties, who want the Canadian government to formally request the return of Khadr to Canada.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has continued to insist that what he calls "legal proceedings" in the US against Khadr should be allowed to run their course, and only after the completion of these proceedings will he consider intervening. In April, a lower court ruled that the Canadian government must seek Khadr's return, but Harper appealed that ruling.
In today's decision, two out of three Justices cited the role played by Canadian officials who interrogated Khadr at Guantanamo while he was suffering the effects of sleep deprivation, and then shared the results of the interrogation with their American counterparts.
"The knowing involvement of Canadian officials in the mistreatment of Mr. Khadr in breach of international human rights law, in particular by interviewing him knowing that he had been deprived of sleep in order to induce him to talk, ‘opens up a different dimension' of a constitutional and justiciable nature,” the majority opinion states.
"While Canada may have preferred to stand by and let the proceedings against Mr. Khadr in the United States run their course, the violation of his Charter rights by Canadian officials has removed that option,” the Justices wrote.
The Canadian government still has another opportunity to wash its hands of the Khadr case and keep him in legal limbo – today’s appeal court decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Margaret Feike
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Comments
you need an independent citizenry. one that can write, read, and form an opinion. that is lacking in the usa, and apparently also in canada.
but no matter, after canada has warmed up to 'temperate,' and the usa is a sun-blasted desert, you can laugh at the yanks and tell them to 'let my people go.'
A war between the two countries is most unlikely -- the Canadian establishment would much sooner sell the country to USA for a package of stock options and perhaps one seat on the board of directors.
Myriad, I'm glad too that Canada didn't join the "coalition of the willing." I'd feel even better about that if there was evidence the decision was made on principle -- for example, if Canada would officially welcome Iraq war resisters from the US.