Khadr charges will be dropped after inauguration: lawyers
NEWYORK -- Charges against Omar Khadr will be dropped "without prejudice" shortly
after Barack Obama's inauguration Jan. 20 as president, the Canada-born terror
suspect's U.S. military lawyers predicted Monday.
The technical arrangement will effectively suspend the Jan. 26 start date for his trial
before a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Mr. Obama's advisers say one of the new president's first duties in office will be to
order the closing of the Guantanamo detention camps. Under the Bush administration,
up to 80 detainees were to eventually face trial, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM),
who has said he was responsible for planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "from A to Z."
Mr. Khadr, 22, is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in a firefight when he was 15, and his
trial is the only one currently scheduled to begin. "We can't imagine that the new president
will move to close the camps without also addressing the military commissions," said
Rebecca Synder, one of Mr. Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyers. "Otherwise, it may seem
that he may end up giving KSM a fairer trial than Omar Mr. Khadr, a former child soldier."
Effective suspension of the charges will result in increased pressure on Prime Minister
Stephen Harper to find a formula to return Toronto-born Mr. Khadr to Canada, according
to navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Mr. Khadr's lead Pentagon-appointed lawyer.
"I still think it is appropriate that he returns under certain supervisory conditions, but I also
believe that it is possible the window for achieving that is now closing," he said. "We don't
know exactly what Mr. Obama will do regarding this case. But there is a chance right now
to ensure an arrangement is in place that gets Omar the things he needs for rehabilitation."
Harper said Monday he would wait to see what the Mr. Obama administration does with
Mr. Khadr before deciding whether Canada's position should be changed. "We have a very
different situation with Mr. Mr. Khadr. He is accused of a very serious thing and there is a
legal process," he said.
With Mr. Obama weighing an imminent decision to order the closure of the U.S. military
prison at Guantanamo Bay, leading human-rights agencies on Monday appealed for him
to halt the looming trial. At a news conference in Washington, Senator Romeo Dallaire
and several leading Guantanamo critics warned Mr. Obama will betray his campaign
promises if he allows the 22-year-old Canadian to stand trial on Jan. 26.
In a letter to Mr. Obama, the group argued Mr. Khadr is a child soldier who should not
face military justice at Guantanamo. "Really, what we're asking for here is not even for
president-elect Mr. Obama to make a judgment about Omar Mr. Khadr's innocence or
guilt -- or about his case -- but for his administration to call a moratorium, to freeze the
proceedings," said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center,
a Washington-based advocacy group.
If the trial opens as planned, "it would be an enormous disappointment for those of us
who have watched the campaign and trusted president-elect Mr. Obama's remarks
with respect to his own views on the military proceedings," Ms. Levick said.
The future of the Guantanamo military prison looms as one of the biggest facing
Mr. Obama in the days following his inauguration. The Associated Press reported Monday
the incoming president is expected to issue an executive order within his first week in
office ordering the prison closed, and to determine how best to relocate its 250 remaining
detainees.
But that may leave unresolved the pressing question of Mr. Khadr's trial in a military
commission process Mr. Obama himself has declared a "dangerously flawed legal" system.
"If the proceedings against Omar Mr. Khadr go on, and go forward Jan. 26, (Mr. Khadr)
will in fact be the first child tried in the United States for war crimes in our history," said
Ms. Levick.
A military commission judge last summer dismissed arguments by defence lawyers,
who cited the UN optional protocol on children in armed conflict as prohibiting Mr. Khadr
from facing a war-crimes tribunal. The U.S. signed the protocol in 2000.
Brooke Anderson, Mr. Obama's national security spokeswoman, declined to comment on
Mr. Khadr's case Monday.
Sen. Dallaire, a former Canadian military general who has led efforts in Parliament to r
epatriate Mr. Khadr, said his staff has been in touch with Mr. Obama's transition team
about the case. With Harper's government refusing to intervene, Sen. Dallaire said he's
still hopeful Mr. Obama will order Mr. Khadr released into Canadian custody.
"I have gotten nowhere with the Canadian government. Although we have attempted
to convince the prime minister that standing aloof from this process is inappropriate ...
he refused to open up a conversation with the Americans in regards to Mr. Khadr,"
Sen. Dallaire said. "If the Canadians don't want to ask for him ... then maybe the
solution is [for Mr. Obama] to offer him to the Canadians."
The spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Monday that
Canada's position on Mr. Khadr has not changed. "We will be following with interest
any developments under the incoming administration of president-elect Mr. Obama,"
said Cannon's spokeswoman, Catherine Loubier.
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bryon Wilfert repeated the Opposition's call for Harper to
ask for Mr. Khadr to be repatriated, just as western countries, such as Australia and
Britain, have done with their nationals in Guantanamo. And he reiterated that Mr. Khadr
should "face justice" from Canadian courts for the crimes he's accused of, and not simply
be set free. "He should come home -- period. Whether Guantanamo is closed or not is
a secondary issue," Wilfert told Canwest News Service.
"Closing Guantanamo isn't going to be done overnight, in any event. Mr. Obama's team
is going to have to look very closely at it." Mr. Khadr's legal allies include five leading
international human-rights organizations -- Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First and the Coalition to Stop the Use
of Child Soldiers -- that made separate written appeals to Mr. Obama on Monday.
"We urge that, upon taking office, you act quickly to suspend the military commissions,
drop the military commission charges against Mr. Khadr, and either repatriate him for
rehabilitation in Canada or transfer him to federal court and prosecute him in accordance
with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards," the groups said in their letter.
Also speaking on Mr. Khadr's behalf was Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra
Leone who last year rose to international prominence with the publication of a bestselling
memoir about his wartime experiences.
Mr. Khadr's conviction for war crimes would signal a double standard in the way American
policy treats child soldiers, Beah said. "Are we sending a message out there that says if
a child that engages in war and is forced in war in any other country than the United States,
then we are able to forgive them?" Beah asked. "But if a child is used in war in ways that it
takes the life of a U.S. citizen, then we are not able to look at them as a child? That is not
the kind of legal precedent we want to set."
During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was a fierce critic of both the Guantanamo
prison and the military commission system established by the Bush administration to try
enemy combatants detained after the 9/11 terror attacks. But only last weekend, Mr. Obama
said his pledge to close the prison likely would prove more difficult than he expected, and that
it would be "a challenge" to shut it down during his first 100 days in office.
"It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," he told ABC News. Mr. Obama said
he was struggling with "how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas
corpus, basic principles of Anglo-American legal system, but doing it in a way that doesn't result
in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up."
With files from Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service
