It’s Omar Khadr’s 27th Birthday: He’s Free from Guantánamo, but Still Unjustly Imprisoned in Canada

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It’s Omar Khadr’s 27th Birthday: He’s Free from Guantánamo, but Still Unjustly Imprisoned in Canada

Today is the 27th birthday of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who has been imprisoned since he was 15 years old — in Guantánamo for ten years, and, since the end of September last year, in Canada.

Khadr’s return to Canada followed a monstrous travesty of justice in the US. Under the terms of a plea deal in October 2010, in his trial by military commission, he admitted to being an “alien unprivileged enemy belligerent,” and to throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier at the time of his capture during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, even though the evidence suggests that he was face down and unconscious, having been shot in the back, when the grenade was thrown. Disgracefully, he was also obliged to admit that, by partaking in combat with US forces during wartime and in an occupied country, he was a war criminal.

Khadr agreed to the plea deal solely in order to leave Guantánamo, receiving an eight-year sentence (as opposed the 40-year sentence arrived at during his trial), with one year to be served at Guantánamo and the remaining seven in Canada.

Most importantly, Khadr was just a child when he was seized, even though, as a juvenile — those under 18 when their alleged crimes take place — he should have been rehabilitated, according to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to which both the US and Canada are signatories, rather than being tortured and otherwise abused in US custody, and abandoned by his own government.

On his return, it was reasonable to assume that he would soon be freed, as courts up to and including the Canadian Supreme Court had ruled that his rights had been violated when Canadian agents interrogated him at Guantánamo. In 2010, the Court stated, “Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel, and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the US prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

However, the Canadian government has behaved appallingly since Khadr’s return, first imprisoning him in isolation in Millhaven Penitentiary in Bath, Ontario, where he was classified as a maximum security prisoner (a situation that prompted me to write an article entitled, “Canada’s Shameful and Unending Disdain for Omar Khadr“), and then transferring him to Edmonton Institution in Alberta, another maximum security prison, in late May, after a request made by his long-standing civilian lawyer, Dennis Edney.

At the time, it was reported that he had had a terrible time in Millhaven. As the Toronto Star explained:

Dennis Edney, Khadr’s lawyer, says the 26-year-old was only in Millhaven’s general population for three weeks, during which time his life was threatened after a disagreement with another inmate in the prison cafeteria.

According to Edney, Khadr was helping serve meals in and responsible for distributing pats of butter. “An inmate wanted more than he was entitled to and Omar refused,” Edney said. “He was threatened with being stabbed and there was talk of a contract being put out on his life so the institution intervened to protect him by putting him in segregation.”

The Toronto Star also explained:

The news was welcomed by Edmonton university professor Arlette Zinck [also see here and here] and her team of volunteer instructors, who have been working with Khadr for years. Zinck, who twice visited Khadr in Guantánamo and testified at his sentencing hearing, [had] tried to continue her teachings in Millhaven, both in person and through written correspondence. She said Khadr has been assessed at a Grade 12 level and has gone through official certification testing up to Grade 10.

But there [had] been some difficulties that surpass what he faced in Guantánamo, she said. A package of reading materials, which included Roch Carrier’s classic, The Hockey Sweater, was denied and returned to Zinck this spring with the note: “school materials that are not authorized.”

Khadr had read Carrier’s story while in Guantánamo as part of what Zinck called her “Cross-Canada reading tour,” which also included Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute. “It was Gitmo-approved but didn’t make it through Corrections (Canada),” Zinck said. “But this is not about Corrections Canada being miserable,” she added quickly. “The personnel I’ve interacted with have been professional, caring and just plain kind. The problem is the parameter within which they’ve been asked to work.” [a reference to the fact that Khadr had been assessed as a “maximum security” inmate].

A month ago, the Canadian government received another blow to its crediblity regarding its treatment of Omar when, as The Canadian Press described it, Canada’s prison ombudsman said that prison authorities “ignored favorable information” in “unfairly branding” Khadr as a maximum security inmate.

In a letter to Anne Kelly, senior deputy commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, Ivan Zinger, the executive director of the independent Office of the Correctional Investigator, “urges another look at Khadr’s classification,” as The Canadian Press described it.

Zinger wrote, “The OCI has not found any evidence that Mr. Khadr’s behaviour while incarcerated has been problematic and that he could not be safely managed at a lower security level. I recommend that Mr. Khadr’s security classification be reassessed taking into account all available information and the actual level of risk posed by the offender, bearing in mind his sole offence was committed when he was a minor.”

Zinger, who also called Khadr’s case “unique and exceptional,” added that Khadr had “shown no evidence of problematic behaviour while in Canadian custody,” and noted that the US authorities “had categorized him as minimum security” — a particularly pertinent point to highlight the injustice of his treatment in Canada.

“According to a psychological report on file, Khadr interacted well with others and did not present with violent or extremist attitudes,” Zinger wrote.

The Canadian Press noted that the classification was important, as Arlette Zinck pointed out, because “it affects Khadr’s day-to-day prison existence, such as his access to programs, as well as on his potential for parole.”

Although prison officials have sought to defend the maximum security classification, claiming that Khadr “poses a moderate escape risk and sparks high public safety concerns,” Zinger, whose letter was written a day before Khadr was moved to Edmonton, disagrees. In the letter he cited a US military psychiatrist as saying Khadr “showed no signs of aggressive or dangerous behaviour,” and “consistently verbalized his goal to conduct a peaceful, pro-social life as a Canadian citizen,” and noted, “Our office questions the rationale for not using these professional and expert assessments on file.”

In response to Zinger’s letter, Dennis Edney said that the prison ombudsman’s concerns were “more evidence of a Conservative government campaign to demonize Khadr,” as The Canadian Press described it. “This report contradicts the fiction put out by the Canadian government that Omar Khadr poses a security risk,” Edney said, adding, “The government has long known Guantánamo officials viewed Omar as a ‘good kid.’”

A month ago, Edney went to court to try to oblige the government to transfer Omar to a provincial jail, “calling his incarceration in Edmonton Institution illegal given that Khadr was 15 when he committed the offences to which he pleaded guilty.” A court date has been set for September 23, and if you can help with Dennis Edney’s legal costs, then please visit the Free Omar Khadr website and follow the instructions there.

On Omar’s birthday, it remains clear, unfortunately, that the Canadian government has no intention of backing down. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who made Omar’s life a misery, has moved on, but his replacement, Steven Blaney, has inherited the same script. Responding to Edney’s lawsuit, he said, “The Government of Canada will vigorously defend against any attempted court action to lessen his punishment for these crimes.”

One day, I hope, Canadian government officials will be held accountable for violating Omar Khadr’s rights, and wilfully prolonging his imprisonment, but for now we need to stand with Dennis Edney to, at the least, get him moved from a maximum security institution to one more suited to a “good kid,” who has never been a security threat.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here – or here for the US).