Americans act like 'gods'
Nobody can tell them anything,' says mom of Canadian prisoner
The mother of a Toronto teen charged with murder and held at Guantanamo Bay accused Americans of acting like gods yesterday and slammed Ottawa for doing nothing to help her son.
Maha Elsamnah lashed out at both Washington and Ottawa over the detention and treatment of Omar Khadr, 19, who faces the death penalty if convicted by a special U.S. military tribunal.
"The Americans are gods now," Elsamnah said in an interview from her east-end Toronto home.
"The Americans can do anything. They make the law. Nobody can tell them anything. Nobody can disagree with them."
Khadr was just 15 when he allegedly threw a hand grenade that killed an American soldier and wounded another during a shootout with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in July 2002.
He arrived in Guantanamo Bay as a 16-year-old, the youngest enemy combatant detained there.
"The Canadians have not been trying anything," Elsamnah said. "Ottawa is allied to the Americans, so what do you expect?"
One of Khadr's Canadian lawyers, Dennis Edney, accused the federal government of abandoning the teenager and hiding behind a veil of "silent diplomacy."
The Khadrs, who are Canadian citizens, have had an uneasy relationship with Ottawa since it emerged that the family patriarch, Ahmed Said, was an associate of Osama bin Laden. He was killed in a battle with U.S.-led coalition forces in Pakistan in October 2003.
Another brother, Karim, was paralyzed during the incident in which his father was killed and returned to Canada in April 2004.
The family's oldest brother, Abdullah, is believed to have been detained in Pakistan more than a year ago.
