Omar Khadr's Uncertain Future: An Interview with Michelle Shepard
In January, President Barack Obama gave an order to close Guantanamo Bay. What this means is that the actual American naval base will continue to exist, but by the end of the year, Camp Justice, an expensive legal complex that is portable and could be moved elsewhere, will be dismantled. It also means the closing of the prison camps which hold 245 men, one of whom is Canadian Omar Khadr. Now a 6 foot tall twenty-two year old man with a beard, Khadr was shot and captured by American forces as a fifteen year old on July 27, 2002. What is to become of this young man who has literally grown up in Guantanamo Bay, and how is it that he ended up there in the first place?
Toronto Star journalist Michelle Shephard has done much coverage of the Omar Khadr story, and was very generous in granting me a quick e-mail interview in the short time span between arriving back home from Guantanamo Bay and departing on what she calls "a much needed vacation." She is the author of the book Guantanamo’s Child and has made over a half dozen trips to Guantanamo Bay since 2006.
Reporting from Guantanamo for all these years has been a surreal experience," Shephard tells me. "I've watched the place change and experienced at least three different shuffles of command. That first trip was shocking just because I had no idea what to expect. I couldn't believe there was an entire Navy base equipped with McDonald's and Starbucks. Before I left, I had in my mind that famous picture of the outdoor pens. That was what I was expecting; but the first trip into the prison camps themselves was sobering because they weren't what I expected. They looked more like the Canadian and U.S. prisons that I've been to before. But hanging over it all was the realization that no one there had been tried. They were just being held. Each trip was different and I certainly got to know the place and learned to pack my patience. I feel lucky to have been able to cover that part of history and hopefully shed some light as to what was going on."
In response to my inquiry as to why she decided to write the book, Shephard writes I couldn't get it all in the paper despite the generous amount of space for coverage the Star gave me over the years. I was just frustrated because Canadians couldn’t move beyond the rhetoric in the case – on both sides. The case is complex and goes beyond just Omar. It speaks to how Canada has handled itself in the wake of 9/11. I wanted to tell the story from all sides -- the soldiers, the Khadrs, the Canadians, Guantanamo, Pakistan -- and then hopefully spark an intelligent, informed debate beyond what was taking place."
In her book Guantanamo’s Child, Shephard tells of how the teenager had been sent to stay with one of his father’s friends, Abu Laith al Libi, who would later become an al Qaeda spokesperson. Al Libi and a group of men wanted to travel into the Khost region of Afghanistan; Khadr was seen as a valuable asset because he spoke Pashto and was familiar with the people and territory of the region. On that fateful day in July, Khadr was staying in a mud house with several heavily armed men. When the compound was attacked by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, a grenade was thrown, and U.S. soldier Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer was killed. By the time the battle was over, the mud house had been reduced to rubble. Khadr was found in the rubble and shot. With two large bullet wounds in his chest and an injury that would later cause him to be nearly blind in his left eye, Khadr was taken to Bagram air base in Afghanistan where he was interrogated. In October of 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon charged the fifteen year old with five war crimes, four of which were laid under the Bush administration’s Military Commission Act, and the fifth and main one being "murder in violation of the laws of war" for the death of Sgt Speer. Doubt remains as to whether or not Khadr threw the grenade. In her December 12, 2008 article "Soldier’s report casts doubt on Khadr guilt" Shephard writes of the testimony of ‘Soldier #2’ who allegedly stepped on Khadr by mistake. This testimony of Khadr lying covered by rubble and liable to be accidentally stepped on at the time the grenade was thrown conflicts with other soldiers’ testimonies and raises serious doubts about the Pentagon’s charge.
It is not only the Pentagon’s charge which is questionable. The way that Omar Khadr has been treated legally has also raised eyebrows. There are many international treaty laws and standards to ensure that children be treated in a way that takes into account the vulnerabilities and relative culpability that they posses as minors. Some of these include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, and the Covention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Aritcle 37 of the CRC states that “Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance.” In 2003, the United States government released three children (aged 13-15) who had been detained at Guantanamo. They were put under the care of UNICEF to be properly rehabilitated. Khadr was not so lucky; and contrary to Article 37 of the CRC, his access to legal assistance has been anything but prompt. He was not provided with legal counsel until November 2004, after more than two years of being held in Guantanamo Bay. Shephard informs me that "many legal experts believe international law has been violated both in Canada and the U.S."
Since there is a strong probability that international law is being flouted in their very own country, it is peculiar that Canadian politicians have not been very active in the Khadr case. Some may suffer from what is known as the "Khadr effect."
"I first heard about it when covering the Arar inquiry," Shephard tells me. What it means is that politicians should be careful in interfering in politically sensitive cases due to what happened with Ahmed Said Khadr and Chrétien."
In 1996, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien publicly intervened in Ahmed Said Khadr (Omar Khadr's father) imprisonment for alleged involvement in the bombing of an embassy in Islamabad which killed sixteen people. CSIS was furious. As far as they were concerned, Ahmed Said Khadr was a terrorist and Chrétien had no business getting involved. It was seen as a political error in Ottawa. Though Chrétien has defended his actions, saying he only advocated for Ahmed Said Khadr’s rights to a fair trial, there is no doubt that Chrétien’s actions led to Ahmed’s release. "The political impact was damaging," Shephard says. "I think it has affected how Canada has handled not only Omar’s case but others since 9/11."
Although Canadian politicians have been apathetic about the situation, many ordinary Canadian citizens believe that Omar Khadr is a terrorist who should be tried in the U.S. courts and forgotten about.
"Khadr's Canadian citizenship is important because one of the challenges the Obama administration faces is what to do with detainees from countries where there is fear they will not be handled democratically. In other words, he cannot send them back to countries where they will be jailed without trial, tortured or killed and that's a real possibility in some of the cases. Or there are countries such as Yemen, where there's fear there isn't the infrastructure to stop these men from engaging in terrorism if they are indeed a danger. Those are the tough countries to deal with. Because Omar is Canadian, the Obama administration, should it not choose to try him in the U.S., can work out an arrangement to repatriate him with a program that would hopefully keep Canadians and Omar safe."
In her Toronto Star article, "A Last Look at Guantanamo," Shephard writes that "Khadr’s fate now rests in the hands of the Obama administration and the Canadian government." I asked her how they will decide what will become of him.
"I assume he'll be on the Feb. 19 agenda when Obama visits Harper. I'm not sure what will happen. He'll either be tried in the U.S. or brought back here and I assume put under some sort of control order. If he is brought to Canada, I think it's unlikely he'll be prosecuted due to our Youth Justice Act and fact that he has been in Guantanamo for almost seven years which the Supreme Court ruled illegal. However, I could be wrong."
But does the coming of the Obama administration, with its elicitations of hope and change, mean that hope and change will come to Omar Khadr? It must also be remembered that it is not all up to the United States. Canada's past and future involvement in Khadr's case has and will play an important part in its outcome. I cannot help but wonder who we are as Canadians if we are not moved to act for the sake of a young man who was imprisoned at fifteen and held without trial for a crime he may or may not have committed.