From The Ottawa Citizen
Khadr boycotts Guantanamo hearing for third day
In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, Canadian defendant Omar Khadr (L), who is accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a battle in Afghanistan in 2002, when the Toronto native was 15, sits with his defense team during a hearing at the U.S. Military Commissions court fo
Photograph by: File, Pool/Getty Images
U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba — Omar Khadr’s lawyers said Saturday he was not trying to “thumb his nose” at the military court as the Canadian-born terror suspect boycotted his war crimes prosecution for a third day.
Despite the lawyers’ claim Khadr is currently is severe pain in his shrapnel-injured eyes, he had been playing basketball Friday night in the courtyard of his detention camp at the U.S. naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Army Col. Patrick Parrish, the military judge, ruled that if Khadr,
23, could play basketball, he should be able to show up in court.
Barry Coburn, Khadr’s lead U.S. lawyer, told the court he continues have concerns about Khadr’s psychological condition.
“I reject the notion this is [a] kind of a conniving [attempt] to thumb his nose at these proceedings,” Coburn said.
But Khadr told a camp guard that he would not only stay away from the tribunal, but would be “refusing all visits” from his legal team, camp official U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Laura Bruzzese testified.
She said Khadr had personally told her early Saturday that he was
“not going” to the tribunal. Her later attempts to speak with him to see if he had changed his mind were met with two responses he sent through another detainee, which were a blunt: “Refused.”
Khadr’s boycott comes as the Obama administration is reportedly
“actively seeking” to strike a plea deal with Khadr, whose currently scheduled July trial would be the first U.S. war crimes prosecution in decades of someone for acts allegedly committed as a child.
Khadr is accused of five war crimes charges, including murder in the fatal wounding of a U.S. soldier in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that led to his capture. Khadr was 15 at the time.
The hearing continued Saturday after the judge ruled Khadr’s absence was voluntary.
Khadr’s defence seeks in the current hearings to have thrown out any self-incriminating statements Khadr made during more than 100 hours of interrogation.
The defence alleges Khadr faced coercion and torture in the early interrogations, and that would also affect and taint what he said during later questioning regardless of the setting.
This has become a real mess, with the accused, under orders from his lawyers, setting the agenda.
The judge has lost control of the proceedings, it seems, and the defence lawyers are lapping it up and using it to get their client aquitted.
Kudos for them for doing so, its their job.
But in the interests of getting to the truth of who this man is and what sort of a threat he may be to the public safety, I would transfer the trial to a military court. It was a battlefield he was on, in a war zone, and he was a known enemy combatant. Trying him in a civil court for war crimes does not make sense at all.
Accused war criminals should be tried in military courts. Period. End of story. Applying civil law proceedings to military events is preposterous, since the entire situation was not civil, but military in nature.
May the truth prevail.
RRWest-I couldn’t agree more. This guy has become the darling of the left and has jerked the system around from the get-go. Agreed- the proceedings should have been conducted in a military court. He has about as much trouble with his eye as my dog has straight hind legs.