Tortured endlessly, deprived of sleep for 21 days, attacked by dogs and threatened with rape, Omar Khadr, now 24, was handed one last piece of vigilante justice: guilty plea to all charges because confessions extracted under torture
From the Editor’s desk...
Tortured endlessly, deprived of sleep for 21 days, attacked by dogs and threatened with rape, Omar Khadr, now 24, was handed one last piece of vigilante justice: guilty plea to all charges because confessions extracted under torture were declared admissible by the military judge.
Under the plea bargain, the Canadian-born Khadr, only 15 when captured in Afghanistan in July 2002, will be handed an eight-year sentence that he must serve in full, in addition to the eight years he has already spent in Guantanamo.
Khadr has been denied his rights and protection as a child soldier. Additionally, he was accused of killing a soldier. Under US kangaroo justice, killing an American soldier in battle is now a “war crime”.
Vicious propaganda had already poisoned the minds of most Americans and indeed many Canadians against Khadr and his family, who was branded the “terror family”.
Of the other 700 Gitmo inmates described as “worst of the worst,” only 170 remain today; the other “hardened terrorists” were quietly released without charge. If they were not guilty, why were they held?
Khadr’s long-delayed trial went through several postponements. Khadr had for months refused to enter a guilty plea because he insisted he had “not killed” anyone. His own lawyers had to convince him to accept the deal otherwise he would spend the rest of his life in prison with no parole. Such is the nature of American justice.