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Canadian on trial at Guantanamo boycotts tribunal
 GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A Canadian teenager charged with killing a US Army medic in Afghanistan told a Guantanamo tribunal on Wednesday he had been unfairly punished with solitary confinement and would no longer participate in the hearing. Omar Khadr, a 19-year-old accused by the US military of being trained by al Qaeda, addressed the presiding officer softly at his pretrial hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.| Omar, of the world famous Kanadian Khadr Killer Klan |
I say with my respect to you and everybody else here that I am boycotting these procedures until I (am) treated humanely and fair, the Toronto native said. One of his military lawyers, Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said Khadr had been moved to solitary confinement for no reason on March 30, making it difficult to prepare a defense. Vokey shouted and slapped the table during a heated exchange with presiding officer, Marine Col. Robert Chester, who recessed the hearing and asked to see Vokey in private. | "Vokey, I think you've been watching too many episodes of Boston Legal. Straighten up, or you'll be defending penguins on Ice Station Zebra." |
The hearing resumed later under protest from defense attorneys. They said it was unethical for them to continue against their clients will. Chester said he would take up the issue later in the week.
Khadr is charged with conspiring to commit war crimes and with murdering US Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002. A spokesman for the prison camp said in a written statement that neither Khadr nor any other Guantanamo detainees were held in solitary confinement. He said Khadr had been moved from a medium-security camp, where prisoners live in groups, to a maximum-security building where they live in individual cells but can still communicate with one another. | He's got a private room and he's bitchin' about it? |
The spokesman, Cmdr. Robert Durand, said the move was routine for those in pretrial status and largely for the protection of the detainee.
The testy exchange came during a daylong hearing where defense attorneys complained repeatedly about rules they said were unclear, unfair and not based on any legal framework. It began when Vokey questioned who had authority to grant Khadrs request for a Canadian lawyer to join the defense team. Chester said he would decide if he had that authority once Vokey made the request in writing. Theres no precedent here, Vokey fumed. I dont know what rule to look to. I dont know what law to look to.| That's the whole *point*, Vokey. These scumbags have the entire Western system of jurisprudence tied up in knots and chasing its own tail while the Sons of Allan continue their plottings and slaughter in the name of all that's *holy*. |
The US military says Khadrs father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an al Qaeda financier and close friend of Osama bin Laden, moved his family between Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan and sent his son to al Qaeda training camps to learn how to use guns, grenades and explosives. The elder Khadr was killed in a shootout with Pakistani security forces in 2003. Khadr was 15 when he was captured. His lawyers believe that trying him for crimes allegedly committed as a juvenile violates international law. Khadr would face life in prison if convicted.| Plus, he's half a orphan, so show some mercy already... |
Ten of the 490 Guantanamo detainees have been charged with war crimes. Khadr is one of four scheduled for pretrial hearings this week. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to the legitimacy of the tribunals last month and is expected to rule by July.
Posted by: Steve 2006-04-06 |
