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Video of Guantanamo teen released

2.4K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  Declan  
#1 ·
Tell me your opinions on this; to me it is one of the greatest failures of the Canadian/American government in modern history. wtf happened to the fifth amendment and how our modern government can just throw it away. :confused:
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/07/2008715121240167554.html

Video of Guantanamo teen released
The US prison base in Cuba has been
highly controversial [EPA]

Lawyers for a young Guantanamo detainee have released video footage of his interrogation at the US prison facility in Cuba.

The video, released on Tuesday, shows Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan, crying as agents of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) question him.

In the tape, apparently shot from a ventilation shaft, Khadr is asked what he knows about al-Qaeda and questioned about his Islamic faith.

The footage from February, 2003 covers seven and a half hours of questioning over three days of Khadr, who was just 15 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002.

Despair

At times, Khadr - only 16 at the time of the interrogation - weeps uncontrollably and pulls at his hair in despair.

At one point, an interrogator tries to calm Khadr, who is clearly distraught, saying he needs to get a "bite to eat" and adding: "I understand this is stressful."

When Khadr complains his compatriots have not helped his case, an interrogator replies: "We can't do anything for you."
In video

Canadian teen interrogated at Guantanamo

The video shows no beating or physical abuse of Khadr. But he is seen showing his interrogators wounds he claimed were sustained on being tortured.

In the video, Khadr is heard wailing at one point: "Kill me, Kill".

Moazzam Begg, who was held at Guantanamo Bay for three years before being released without charge, spoke to Al Jazeera about the time he spent with Khadr.

Begg said: "I first met Omar when he was first brought into a detention facility at Bagram in Afghanistan. The accusation was that he had killed an American soldier so he was treated terribly... dragged around... he was crying often.

"By the time he was in Guantanamo, in a sense, he would have been looking forward to getting out of the situation where he would have seen people killed and of course his own treatment.

"If you have seen that video it's quite evident either he is saying 'Help me, help me' or 'Kill me, kill me'.

"Evidently in the case of Omar and many other detainess they have been cruelly, inhumanely and degradingly treated but they have also been tortured to the point, in some cases... that two people in Bagram were killed."

'Softened up'

Khadr, now 21, remains behind bars at Guantanamo. The video's release comes after Canadian media reported that government documents showed Khadr was forcibly deprived of sleep by his US captors in Guantanamo to soften him up for questioning.

Citing government files released by court order, Canadian media said Khadr was moved to a different cell every three hours to make him more amenable to talking in what US authorities described as their "frequent-flyer programme".

"At three-hour intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted sleep and a continued change of neighbours," said the report from the foreign intelligence division of Canada's foreign affairs department, quoted by Canadian television and newspapers.

Khadr is the youngest detainee in the US "war on terror", accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed a US soldier in a clash in Afghanistan.

Khadr's mother and sister have publicly pleaded his innocence in Canada but another brother Abdullah is in a Toronto jail fighting extradition for conspiring to kill US forces in Afghanistan.

The father of the family Ahmed Said was an alleged al-Qaeda financier who died in a shootout with Pakistan forces in 2003 the same year another brother Abdurahman was released from Guantanamo.

Human rights groups have demanded Khadr be released because he was only 15 at the time of his capture.

But just last week the Canadian prime minister told reporters he would not ask the US government to repatriate him.

Khadr's lawyers say they hope the video will shame Canadian politicians into action.
 
#5 ·
I vehemently dissagree with anyone who claims outright that this kid is a killer. There has been no trial and to presentation of evidence. At this point, the ONLY thing we know, is what the people who have been beating him want us to know. Which is to say he is "accused" of murder.

If that is the case, why has it taken 5 years to even get this kid before a judge? The first appearance he will have is in October, 5 1/2 years after he was first captured, detained, apprehended, incarcerated, absconded with, etc.

All I know, is that if one person in america can disappear for 5 years without seeing a judge, courtroom, or tribunal, then it could happen to all of us. THAT should scare you more than this Kid's alleged crime.
 
#9 ·
Put your "righteous American complex of superiority" on hold for a second and ask yourself this:

If an invading force came over here and you decided to resist and fight, would you be a terrorist or a patriot doing his duty?

What if that invading force got their hands on you and flew you off the continent and threw you in a prison in Morocco for fighting for your country and then tortured you for years on end? Would you be less of a patriot because you were now in one of their jails?

Those of you who think that the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had anything to do with terrorism and not oil are in need of some serious research.
 
#11 ·
If you guys and gals want to see what America isn't anymore you just have to listen to the words of a true patriot and visionary. I hope there is enough of what it means to be American left in your spirit that this words will make you both sad and angry at what has been stolen from us: a grandiose dream.

 
#14 ·
More "torture"

uly 16, 2008, 9:53 am
Covington Partner Demonstrates Treatment of Detainees
Posted by Dan Slater
remes_art_200_20080718095737.jpg
David Remes, a Covington & Burling partner, lowered his pants on Monday at a conference in Yemen to demonstrate the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

In a recent interview with the Yemen Observer, David Remes, a Covington & Burling partner who was in Yemen working on his representation of 15 Yemeni detainees at Gitmo, told the journalist that he had “two missions” during the visit: “first to meet the families of the men that I represent in Guantanamo and second, to do what I can to promote the cause of these men.”

RemesIt was in the name of this zealous advocacy that Remes (Columbia, Harvard Law) removed his pants at a news conference on Monday. This morning, we caught up with Remes, who had just landed at JFK after a 14-hour flight from Dubai.

“I’d been to Guantanamo in mid-June,” explained Remes, “and there’s a certain amount of normalcy that has settled over the normal miserable conditions of confinement, which amount to solitary confinement without sleep and without sunlight and without anyone to talk to. So at the news conference, I said that, in addition to this torment, which has become so typical that we don’t even talk about it anymore, now the torment also consists of constant body searches in which the men are required to pull their shirts up to their chest, drop their pants, and then the corn-fed U.S. military sticks their thumbs under the prisoner’s underwear band and circles the prisoner’s torsos.” Remes said these searches can take place several times in the course of a day.

Remes continued: “At the press conference in Yemen — this is a society where the rule of morality is so strict — I wanted to drive home the degree of humiliation that these searches cause by illustrating a typical body search. The physical abuse they can stand. The verbal abuse they can stand. But when the military punishes Muslim men by shaving off their beard, or by forcing them to disrobe — for a Muslim man that is a thousand times more cutting than a Westerner can imagine. And that’s what I was trying to dramatize. The reaction to what I did makes me very sad. I wish people paid as much attention to the suffering and torment in Guantanamo as they paid to the way I sought to dramatize it.”

A call to a Department of Defense spokesman was not immediately returned. Of course, we’ll update the post if and when we hear back.