Canadian Bar Association calls for Khadr's release

[struggle4progress]

Source: Canadian Press

Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 2:40 PM ET

CALGARY -- The Canadian Bar Association is calling for a Canadian detainee held at a U.S. military prison to be immediately released and turned over to Canada.

The Bar Association is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to call on the U.S. government to turn 20-year-old Omar Khadr over to Canadian law enforcement officials to be dealt with under Canadian law.

In a letter to Harper, CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy warns that continuing to hold Khadr in Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the rule of law. ~snip~

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070812/khadr_release_070812/20070812?hub=Canada

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Bar Association urges Harper to support Khadr trial in Canada

KIRK MAKIN

Globe and Mail Update

August 12, 2007 at 2:15 PM EDT

CALGARY — ~snip~ CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy received a standing ovation from delegates to association's annual convention this morning after he read a letter to the prime minister drafted overnight and speedily passed into policy by the association's executive committee.

The letter urges Mr. Harper to consider Mr. Khadr as he would any other underage accused person, and to allow the 20-year-old man — who was arrested five years ago on charges that he killed a U.S. serviceman in Afghanistan — to be tried under Canadian law.

"It would be unimaginable that this could happen to a 15-year-old in Canada," Mr. MacCarthy said in an interview.

Mr. Khadr, a member of a Toronto family that had strong links to the al-Qaeda movement, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for the past five years — only one year less than the maximum possible sentence he could get for murder in a Canadian court. ~snip~

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070812.wmakin0812/BNStory/National/home

[ohio2007]

1. The US captured the 15 yr old in Canada ?

What age did his parents allow him to go to Afghanistan if he was 15 yrs old in 2001 ?

dysfunctional family to say the least.

[Lisa]

2. dysfunctional -- that's the impression I got ...

They were interviewed extensively on Canadian TV. The mom and dad are fanatics who took their kids to a war zone (they moved to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Russians). Their daughter Zaynab appeared intelligent and well-spoken, but the lack of opportunities she's had really showed -- during the CBC interview she spewed out all kinds of self-righteous, ignorant, hateful things.

The only one I thought had any sense was Abdurahman (next oldest to Omar). He repeatedly tried to run away from the military training camp his parents forced him to attend. And he was upset by how his parents were trying to suck up to bin Laden (he met OBL and figured that he was a manipulator who liked playing his followers off against each other -- something the mom and dad missed, or chose to ignore).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/khadr/index.html


p.s. I think Omar was picked up in Afghanistan ... I don't know whether the kids went back and forth between Afghanistan and Canada as he was growing up, but I guess it's possible.

[struggle4progress]

3. Child soldier, so by definition abused, entitled to better rehab than Gitmo

The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11128331/follow_omar_khadr_from_an_al_qaeda_childhood_to_a_gitmo_cell