Charges dropped against Khadr in Guantanamo

[kuzadd]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/04/khadr-charges.html

The charges against Omar Khadr, the only Canadian being held in the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, have been dropped.

Khadr, 20, had been facing charges of murder and terrorism, and was scheduled to be tried before a U.S. military commission in Cuba. He was to be arraigned on Monday.

Khadr was accused of killing an American medic five years ago as U.S. marines fought against al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.

this will be interesting to follow, what will be forthcoming, a lack evidence?

[M.Dancer]

this will be interesting to follow, what will be forthcoming, a lack evidence?

.......procedural error My Webpage

Charges against Omar Khadr were dismissed Monday by a military judge who ruled that his tribunal had no jurisdiction to try the alleged terrorist because the government had failed to designate him an "unlawful enemy combatant.''

"Charges are dismissed with prejudice," Colonel Peter Brownback ruled.

[FTA Lawyer]

This is why I have commented in earlier threads that the denial of a detainee's right to make habeas corpus applications is so outrageous.

Basically, the US is prepared to unlawfully incarcerate someone, set up a farce for a "hearing" and when they can't even comply with their own simplistic preconditions, just send him back to his cell...indefinitely.

How is that not in and of itself a crime against humanity / war crime?

FTA

[Higgly]

This is why I have commented in earlier threads that the denial of a detainee's right to make habeas corpus applications is so outrageous.

Basically, the US is prepared to unlawfully incarcerate someone, set up a farce for a "hearing" and when they can't even comply with their own simplistic preconditions, just send him back to his cell...indefinitely.

How is that not in and of itself a crime against humanity / war crime?

I'm with you. The whole process is corrupt. In any case, we won't see Khadr on the streets any time soon. He will just have to wait for another year and a half of legislative wrangling.

[Leafless]

this will be interesting to follow, what will be forthcoming, a lack evidence?

I don't think Omar Khadr will be going anywhere soon.

"The ruling didn't mean freedom for Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured after a deadly firefight in Afghanistan and who is now 20. He and the 380 other men will remain jailed at Guantanamo on suspicion of having links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/2...amo-trials.html

[M.Dancer]

As a detainee who isn't an illegal combattant, and therefore a "legal" combattant....the normal procedure is that he will be held until the cessation of hostilities.

Personally I think he should be turned over to the Afghan government to be repatriated when the war is over.

[Figleaf]

So the plan for now in the Bush gulag is to imprison innocent people indefinitely?

And this is the 'democracy and freedom' Bush wants to bring the world?

Feh!

[noahbody]

So the plan for now in the Bush gulag is to imprison innocent people indefinitely?

And this is the 'democracy and freedom' Bush wants to bring the world?

Feh!

Procedural flaw doesn't exactly mean innocence.

[Figleaf]

So the plan for now in the Bush gulag is to imprison innocent people indefinitely?

And this is the 'democracy and freedom' Bush wants to bring the world?

Feh!

Procedural flaw doesn't exactly mean innocence.

Dismissal means innocent if you're innocent until proven guilty.

[Leafless]

So the plan for now in the Bush gulag is to imprison innocent people indefinitely?

And this is the 'democracy and freedom' Bush wants to bring the world?

Feh!

Procedural flaw doesn't exactly mean innocence.

Innocent is meaningless in a court anyways.

The verdict is always either 'guilty' or 'not guilty'.

With charges being dismissed means a verdict of 'not guilty'.

It does not mean that the person is innocent and only means the government did not prove its case.

[capricorn]

If Khadr cannot be tried in a US military court, then wouldn't it seem reasonable that he be tried in a regular court of law?

I can't see the US just releasing this guy without putting him on trial for the alleged murder of a US marine. I read that the prosecutor has video footage of the event which he plans to use at trial.

It's true the Canadian government is eerily silent on this case. Too many questions about our government's action or inaction are unanswered.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/222697

I fully agree that justice delayed is justice denied. Khadr should have been brought to trial years ago. But just on the matter of releasing an accused, if the situation was reversed and we were holding a US citizen charged with murdering a Canadian, what would our government do? Would we cave in to US pressure to release the accused into US custody without first holding a trial? I would hope not.

Call me what you want. I am one of those who hopes Khadr never comes back here. If this were to happen, I think he and his family would turn their hate for the West against Canada and there's no telling how this hatred would be manifested. Let's not forget that he was indoctrinated at a very young age and he still maintains his devotion to the Al Qaeda cause.

[FTA Lawyer]

I fully agree that justice delayed is justice denied. Khadr should have been brought to trial years ago. But just on the matter of releasing an accused, if the situation was reversed and we were holding a US citizen charged with murdering a Canadian, what would our government do? Would we cave in to US pressure to release the accused into US custody without first holding a trial? I would hope not.

My whole point is simply that habeas corpus applications allow a prisoner who feels that their incarceration is unlawful to require the person imprisoning them to justify to an impartial judge that they are in fact doing so legally.

In the situation of the US and their Guantanamo detainees, they have passed legislation which completely outlaws any court from having jurisdiction to hear a habeas corpus application...which of course means that it is legally impossible for a detainee to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

Now why would any state / government pass such legislation unless they knew damn well that they were unlawfully imprisoning people? I mean, really, if you are only keeping people in Guantanamo in accordance with the rule of law, then why be afraid of those people asking a judge to review the situation?

FTA

[Rue]

I agree with FTA.

[Rue]

As a detainee who isn't an illegal combattant, and therefore a "legal" combattant....the normal procedure is that he will be held until the cessation of hostilities.

Personally I think he should be turned over to the Afghan government to be repatriated when the war is over.

That dancedude was the point of the case precisely. It said he was a legal combatant, which makes him in legal theory a soldier and so as you say according to the Geneva contention the normal procedure is to hold him as a pow until the cessation of hostilities.

The problem is the confusion between defining legal and illegal combatants. Due to the fact that terrorists can be both definitions and often switch back and forth, the current Geneva Convention is not equipped to deal with this fusion of illegal and legal combatant definitions and the US as are many other countries caught deciding should they treat them as soldiers or civilian terrorists or both at the same time in different courts.

The law has to be modified.

What is clear as of yesterday is that the Canadian Charter will not apply to Canadians overseas.

What is also clear is that while Guantanamo Bay procedures would violate the US and Canadian constitutions in that prisoners have not been afforded trials in a timely manner, the US is not concerned and will fall back on arguing even if they are civilians they feel they are outside US law which is legally wrong but this is all about politics right now not the law.

I mean this is the same US State Department that went to absurd extremes to try re-write the definition of the word torture so as not to be able to be held accountable legally for the torture that went on by CIA contracted interogators in Iraq.

From a purely legal point of view, as much h as I support the US politically, I can not as a lawyer myself possbly condone their illegal actions and have to confer with FLA . Even the JAG corps of the US Armed Forces disagrees with Bush on this.

[Remiel]

Something that is confusing me, Rue: What is the point of defining a terrorist as being sometimes a legal combatant and sometimes an illegal combatant when a state actor could commit identical actions as be protected as a legal combatant for all of them?

[Argus]

This is why I have commented in earlier threads that the denial of a detainee's right to make habeas corpus applications is so outrageous.

Basically, the US is prepared to unlawfully incarcerate someone, set up a farce for a "hearing" and when they can't even comply with their own simplistic preconditions, just send him back to his cell...indefinitely.

How is that not in and of itself a crime against humanity / war crime?

FTA

Mmm, because the individual is a murdering, Islamist scumball?

[Argus]

So the plan for now in the Bush gulag is to imprison innocent people indefinitely?

And this is the 'democracy and freedom' Bush wants to bring the world?

Feh!

NO ONE has suggested this little puke is innocent of anything.

[Argus]

I fully agree that justice delayed is justice denied. Khadr should have been brought to trial years ago. But just on the matter of releasing an accused, if the situation was reversed and we were holding a US citizen charged with murdering a Canadian, what would our government do? Would we cave in to US pressure to release the accused into US custody without first holding a trial? I would hope not.

My whole point is simply that habeas corpus applications allow a prisoner who feels that their incarceration is unlawful to require the person imprisoning them to justify to an impartial judge that they are in fact doing so legally.

This is all nitpicking by lawyers - who, of course, care NOTHING about justice, and everything about their petty, if often insane rules of evidence and law and precise interpretations of minute definitions.

People forget that national laws and constitutional protections were never intended to be used with regard to wars fought on foreign shores. As for international law which DOES deal with war, it was never intended to deal with combatants who owe no allegiance to any international body, and whose word can not be relied upon in any way, shape or form to cease combat upon cessation of hostilities.

Khadr is not a citizen of Afghanistan, and was not fighting for any national government. So even if the Afghanistan government had surrendered (it has not, it is still in hiding, still engaged in hostilities) Khadr could not be released to them upon cessation of hostilities. Realistically, if released, he would probably immediately seek out similar minded Islamists and engage in continued violence, whether in Canada or Afghanistan or elsewhere.

But lawyers don't care about what a person is likely to do, of course. All they'll do is say "Well, he broke no law here, because we don't consider killing the American soldier to be murder, so let him go. If he kills a few dozen people later, in a way we do accept to be murder, well, then the law will deal with him".

One solution. Let him live with FTA. No doubt he will abandon all his Islamist ways walk in gay pride parades and become a member of the Liberal party.

Or he'll blow up FTA and his family, but hey, then the law can deal with him, right?

[Remiel]

This is all nitpicking by lawyers - who, of course, care NOTHING about justice, and everything about their petty, if often insane rules of evidence and law and precise interpretations of minute definitions.

So? It is pretty clear the the U.S. Government doesn't give a damn about justice either, at home or abroad, so what the hell is your point?

[jdobbin]

Mmm, because the individual is a murdering, Islamist scumball?

Then charge with that in a court of law rather than trying to try it in secret and execute people in secret like the U.S. seems intent on.

[jdobbin]

But lawyers don't care about what a person is likely to do, of course. All they'll do is say "Well, he broke no law here, because we don't consider killing the American soldier to be murder, so let him go. If he kills a few dozen people later, in a way we do accept to be murder, well, then the law will deal with him".

One solution. Let him live with FTA. No doubt he will abandon all his Islamist ways walk in gay pride parades and become a member of the Liberal party.

Or he'll blow up FTA and his family, but hey, then the law can deal with him, right?

I believe a Canadian court could try him but no, that hasn't even been contemplated.

As for the rest of your rant which veers into the abusive against someone who has pointed out that even the military has a hard time with the justice that Bush is trying to mete out, why not tone it down?

[Argus]

Mmm, because the individual is a murdering, Islamist scumball?

Then charge with that in a court of law rather than trying to try it in secret and execute people in secret like the U.S. seems intent on.

In secret? Everything about this case is on the front page of the newspapers.

[Argus]

This is all nitpicking by lawyers - who, of course, care NOTHING about justice, and everything about their petty, if often insane rules of evidence and law and precise interpretations of minute definitions.

So? It is pretty clear the the U.S. Government doesn't give a damn about justice either, at home or abroad, so what the hell is your point?

There are people with far less guilt than Khadr rotting in prisons for anti-government activity in India, in China, in Pakistan, in Syria, in Kenya, in Russia, in Zimbabwe, and in a half a hundred countries around the world who can only dream of the clean conditions, food, medical attention, and the hope of some kind of honest trial Khadr will get. And you don't give a shit about them.

So what exactly is your point?

[capricorn]

The latest on Khadr.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/04...4114554-cp.html

"Thompson suggested the only trial Khadr could face in Canada would be that on high treason charges, and "that has not been tested here since 1946."

(John Thompson is with the Mackenzie Institute.)

As repugnant as he is, Khadr is a Canadian citizen. This type of media attention and opinion may spur the Conservatives into action. The Conservatives may well be doing something on this that we are not aware of. The least they could do is show public interest in how a Canadian citizen, the last westerner to be held at Guantanamo, is being treated.

As others have said, the fear remains that, if released from custody we could eventually pay for his years of detention by the US.

[Argus]

But lawyers don't care about what a person is likely to do, of course. All they'll do is say "Well, he broke no law here, because we don't consider killing the American soldier to be murder, so let him go. If he kills a few dozen people later, in a way we do accept to be murder, well, then the law will deal with him".

One solution. Let him live with FTA. No doubt he will abandon all his Islamist ways walk in gay pride parades and become a member of the Liberal party.

Or he'll blow up FTA and his family, but hey, then the law can deal with him, right?

I believe a Canadian court could try him but no, that hasn't even been contemplated.

What Canadian law has he broken? If he set foot in Canada he would be immediately released. This is not a criminal case, and Canadian law - which is only marginally effective at the best of times even in trying criminal cases - would be of no use here.