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Secret video offers glimpse of Gitmo interrogations
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-16 12:52 "If this is the way a teenager in Guantanamo has been treated, you can just imagine how anyone else has been treated."
Layne Morris, the Army sergeant who was blinded in his right eye during the firefight in 2002, said he saw nothing in the interrogation to change his opinion that Khadr is dangerous and "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible" for his alleged role in the battle. "If my drill sergeant had spoken to me like that in basic training I'd probably still be sending him Christmas cards," said Morris, now out of the military and living in Salt Lake City. "He's not sniveling and whining because he's hurt or scared, he's just upset he's in US custody for the foreseeable future." Canada's Supreme Court ordered the Canadian government in May to hand over key evidence against Khadr to his legal team to allow a full defense of the US charges, which include accusations that he spied for and provided material support to terrorists. In June, a Canadian Federal Court judge ordered the Canadian government to release the video to the defense after the court ruled the US military's treatment of Khadr broke human rights laws, including the Geneva Conventions. The Canadian report indicates that Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was raised in Afghanistan, was questioned about his family, which has a long history of alleged involvement with radical Islamic causes. His Egyptian-born father, Ahmed Said Khadr, and some of his brothers fought for al-Qaida and had stayed with Osama bin Laden. Omar defends his father under questioning. "Your father wants to continue this struggle. But he's doing this at the expense of his entire family," the interrogator tells him. The prisoner responds: "He's not doing anything bad." Khadr faces up to life in prison on US charges that include murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed an American special forces soldier, Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, N.M. Among the hours of videotape, Khadr denies killing Speer. Instead he says the three US soldiers "just came over and shot me" while he was sitting down. "How did that American end up getting so dead then?" the interrogator asks. "There was a fight on," Khadr replies. During his last interrogation, according to the Canadian government report, Khadr was shown a picture of his family and denied knowing anyone in it. While being watched by guards, he then urinated on the photograph. However, 2 1/2 hours later, apparently believing he was no longer being watched, he quietly lay his head next to the picture. Gould wrote in a briefing note of his visit that he had met a "screwed up young man" whose trust had been abused by just about everyone who had ever been responsible for him -- including his family and the US military. With the release of the video, "We hope that the Canadian government will finally come to recognize that the so-called legal process that has been put in place to deal with Omar Khadr's situation is grossly unfair and abusive," said Nathan Whitling, one of Khadr's lawyers. "It's not appropriate to simply allow this process to run its course." Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has maintained he will not seek Khadr's return to Canada and his position was unchanged after the release of the video. Anne Howland, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, said the government believes Khadr is in "a legal process that must continue." Khadr's sister, Zaynab Khadr, who lives in Toronto, said she was pessimistic his situation would improve soon. She noted that another brother, Abdullah Khadr, now in prison on terror charges in Canada awaiting extradition to the United States, was interrogated by Canadian agents despite having been abused in detention in Pakistan.
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