In 2002, Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan. He was 15 at the time. He is being held at Guantanamo Bay.. He is now 21, and has spent the past six years in prison, awaiting trial.
Omar was born in Canada. His mother, sister, and brother are in Canada. He spent a year waiting for Canadian officials to come to Guantanamo Bay and rescue him from the US.
A 15 year old boy who cried out for his mother in despair, and when the Canadians who visit him, tell him there is nothing they can or will do, he loses all hope.
The US military would keep a 15 year old in custody for six years, while he cries out for his mother, begs for medical attention, and asks for help from the Canadian government to rescue him from the hell of Guantanamo Bay.
What a heart wrenching story, but like all stories, there is always two sides ...
Omar was captured after the structure he was in was blown up by US Special Forces after he threw a grenade that killed a special forces member and wounded others. From the rubble, he was pulled out, half alive. The US forces provided medical attention and took Omar into custody. He is a killer.
Another question we might ask is what a Canadian teenager is doing in Afghanistan. His father, it turns out, is an Egyptian al qaeda financier. Omar was raised in Afghanistan with his father in al qaeda camps and among al qaeda members - some of whom were his brothers, who fought with bin Laden.
Back home, Omar has another brother - Abdullah Khadr who is in prison on terror charges awaiting extradition to the United States. Abdullah however, was not apprehended in Canada. he was apprehended in Pakistan and sent to Canada to be sorted out.
Al qaeda is a family affair. When questioned about his father, Omar said he had done nothing wrong.
When shown a photo of his family - he denied knowing any of them. When left alone in the cell, he urinated on the photo.
A 15 year old, crying for his mother, begging for help, crying out for a compassionate hug ...
Where were the mother and sister when he was taken to Afghanistan? Did they believe he would be painting pictures and eating lollipops? It is questionable that his mother was very involved in his life, nor cared deeply for the life of her son.
What was he doing throwing grenades at special forces
What parent that loves their child and cares about their well-being sends their kid out with a grenade to attack special forces
Any parent that places a grenade in the hands of a child does so hoping and wishing their child KILLS someone and or dies and goes to heaven with his virgins.
The US Special Forces defeated this plan - they kept him alive, provided medical attention, even though, his wildest hope was to have died and gone to heaven - the US kept the murderer alive, however much they may have wished to do otherwise after he killed their comrade.
For the Canadians who are just enraged by US action and the imprisonment of this person - go take a pole, insert, and rotate.
He wanted to die.
His father wanted him to kill and die.
His brothers were proud he was going to kill and die.
His mother and sister had no part in raising him, and for allowing the father to take him, his mother knew full well he would kill and or die.
For those who wish to let me know that - his culture, his mother, Arabs and Muslims, and women do not tell husbands what to do, she had no control and was probably inconsolable but had no power to stop him. BULLSHIT.
Yes, in Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, women may not have power - but had this powerless woman walked over to her phone and called the CIS office closest to her, told them that her Egyptian husband was taking her son to Afghanistan, that he was an al qaida financier, and a friend of bin laden, and that all she wanted to do was protect her son/s ... CIS would have assisted her. Not because they love children, although I am sure they do, but because this was just after 2001 and they understood the threat. In fact, forget CIS - call FBI and tell them the dilemma. They would have swooped in, scooped up the mother and daughter and sons and set up a sting for the father. She would have the 16 year old son with her, and they could go out for walks, down Yonge street to walk over to watch a movie or go shopping at the Eaton Centre.
The US government will not kill him. He will be in prison for the murder of a Special Forces member.
Omar was not defending anything nor was he protecting anything - you will recall, he was Canadian, born in Canada ... where he should have stayed, but for the negligence of his parents, and the hate in his father.
He will spend time in prison and will be out when he is in his late forties or fifties, still able, if he chooses, to go and blow himself, and more innocent people up - unless someone stops him before he murderers more innocents.
****************************************
Gitmo video offers glimpse of interrogations
By CHARMAINE NORONHA
TORONTO (AP) — Burying his face in his hands, a 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan sobs and calls out "Oh Mommy!" in a hidden-camera video released Tuesday that provides the first look at interrogations inside the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
Lawyers for Toronto-born Omar Khadr released the tapes in hopes of generating sympathy for the young prisoner and to try to persuade the Canadian government to seek custody before he is prosecuted for war crimes at the U.S. special tribunal in Guantanamo later this year.
The son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that left another soldier blinded in one eye.
Khadr, who was 15 at the time, was found in the rubble of a bombed-out compound — badly wounded and near death.
The seven hours of grainy footage, recorded over four days of questioning by Canadian intelligence agents in 2003, shows Khadr breaking down in tears. At one point he pleads for help and displays chest and back wounds that he says had not healed six months after his capture.
Peeling off his orange prisoner shirt, he shows the wounds and complains he cannot move his arms, saying he has not received proper medical attention, despite requests.
"They look like they're healing well to me," the agent says of the injuries.
"No, I'm not. You're not here (at Guantanamo)," says Khadr.
The agent later accuses Khadr of using his injuries and emotional state to avoid the interrogation.
"No, you don't care about me," Khadr says.
In a 10-minute excerpt released by his Canadian lawyers, Khadr's mood swings between calm and relief to rage and grief.
At first, believing that the Canadians were there to help him, Khadr smiles and repeats several times, "I'm very happy to see you."
"I've been requesting the Canadian government for a very long time," he says.
By the second day, however, he is seen in a frenzy of despair after realizing the Canadian agents are not there for his release, repeatedly moaning "Ya Umi," — "Oh Mommy" in Arabic — while left alone in the room.
His lawyers, listening to the same audio, said they believed he was calling out "Help me," but acknowledged they were unsure. Khadr's family, who are from Egypt, said he was calling for his mother, and Arabic-speaking reporters for The Associated Press confirmed that.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military lawyer, said the video shows "a frightened boy" who should be permitted to return to Canada. He said Khadr was cooperative at the beginning of four days stretch of questioning because, "he believed that if he was cooperative and told them what he thought they wanted to hear that they would take him home."
On the final day, the agent tells Khadr that he was "very disappointed" in Khadr's behavior, and tries to impress upon him that he should cooperate.
Khadr says he wants to go back to Canada. "There's not anything I can do about that," the agent says.
[...]
"What you see in the video is a teenager begging for help and what you see is an interrogation that violates U.S. law and any international law concerning the rights of children," said Wells Dixon, a lawyer for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of Guantanamo prisoners.
"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 U.S. custody for the foreseeable future."
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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
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.
bad people
al qaeda
al qaeda
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments