30/06/2006
CANADIAN PRESS
WASHINGTON — Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyers say he should be extradited to Canada from Guantanamo Bay now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that American military war crimes trials for the detainees are illegal.
“They should send him back to Canada,” Edmonton lawyer Dennis Edney said about Khadr, the 19-year-old Canadian held at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo since he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002.
“We have laws dealing with war crimes committed abroad,” Edney said today. But the Canadian government — and not Khadr’s lawyers — must make the extradition request. Edney blasted Ottawa for failing to take a stand in Khadr’s case. He also said the Canadian government has not taken a position on the Guantanamo facility while other countries have demanded it be closed. “We have a government that hasn’t said a word,” Edney said. “They have been using silent diplomacy. I have three binders full of letters from Foreign Affairs that don’t say anything.” Nathan Whitling, who also represents Khadr, applauded the U.S. court ruling but said Khadr is still in legal limbo. He said Khadr should either be released or put on trial in a court where he’s guaranteed due process. “It should be in Canada,” he said from Edmonton. “If not, a U.S. domestic court.” Khadr is charged with murder and other counts after allegedly killing a U.S. army medic during a firefight in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. In a stinging blow to the administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority in creating the military trials for detainees in the war on terror. Bush suggested he’ll now ask Congress for approval to try terrorism suspects before U.S. military tribunals. But the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York said there is a “big hill to climb” in proceeding with the cases now because some of the evidence was obtained by torture, and there hasn’t been adequate access to defence lawyers. “We certainly think people should not be held any longer at Guantanamo,” the centre’s president Michael Ratner said from New York. “They should either be charged or released. I don’t think there’s any middle ground.” Ratner said he thinks the centre’s so-called habeas corpus applicatons to free Khadr and the other prisoners will now proceed rapidly in a U.S. Federal Court. Khadr is one of only 10 detainees among some 460 inmates to be charged at a military tribunal held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Pre-trial motions were underway. Khadr’s case was supposed to resume this week but was postponed pending the top court ruling. Edney, who called the court ruling “staggering,” said Khadr is now entitled to “a real court with real laws of evidence.” “That can’t take place in the free-for-all of Guantanamo Bay.” Whitling said the military commissions set up by Bush after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, appear to have been “blown out of the water.” “But I’m not 100 per cent sure of that. My concern is that they can change the process and save the thing.” SOURCE: Toronto Star |
