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and I haven't seen it on CNN yet ...
Wonk posted a link in GD to yesterday's CBC video of the interview with family members of Khadr (I assume that link is now dead), and whirlygigspin posted a link to today's:
www.cbc.ca/MRL/clips/national/thenational.ram
"part 2 starts at 23:00 minutes into the broadcast"
Watch it while you can.
Abdulrahman Khadr originally claimed to have been released from Guantanamo in October (I think it was), and to have been told by the US authorities there that Canada did not want him (he's a naturalized citizen) and dumped in Afghanistan with no papers. He said he attempted to contact Cdn embassy officials in Pakistan and Turkey but was rebuffed by guards. He turned up in Bosnia, had his story told in Canada, and was readmitted to Canada by the embassy there. His younger brother is still in Guantanamo.
The story was huge in Canada because of allegations that the Cdn govt did nothing to help him and Cdn intelligence worked with the US agaisnt his interests. His lawyer resigned after, he said, he received death threats.
In last night's CBC interview, he recanted that entire story and told what he now says is the truth. All that stuff about the US holding him in Guantanamo and then dumping him back in Afghanistan -- all a lie.
He was working for the CIA.
One of five sons of a man believed (and I believe it) to have been an intimate of Osama bin Laden, he was captured in Afghanistan at the time of the invasion. (All the family are naturalized Canadian citizens.)
He was offered money in return for giving US authorities in Afghanistan information -- he went on a tour of the city with them, identifying people and places of interest: safe houses and so on.
They proposed that he become a prisoner in Guantanamo in order to obtain information from prisoners. Accordingly, he was treated like any other prisoner, to build and maintain his cover. His description of the flight to Guantanamo and his time there as a prisoner was wrenching; he said he was broken by the time he arrived, and of course that was just the beginning.
After a few months, he told his controllers that they had got it just about all wrong -- only about 1 in 10 of the people they were holding in Guantanamo had any reason to be there. Their big mistake had been offering reward money to people who turned in alleged Al-Qaeda members; most of the people there are there because of the reward money paid for them and nothing else.
He ultimately could not tolerate the conditions of detention any longer, and had himself removed from the general population, and was given better quarters and privileges. The CIA then proposed that he work for them in Bosnia, for regular monthly pay of $3,000. He agreed and they took him there with a false Moroccan passport, set him up, and had him mingle with the Muslim population and make reports.
Ultimately they asked him to accompany the US forces in Iraq. He was originally agreeable, and then they impressed on him the danger that this meant and he declined. They took back all the stuff they'd given him and dropped him off at the Canadian embassy. He called his grandmother in Toronto and she went to the press with the story that the Cdn authorities had been rebuffing him, and he returned to Canada.
His lawyer, Rocco Galatti, is the one who resigned alleging death threats received (a claim I never found credible). One has to wonder whether he was informed, by someone, of the truth and was therefore unable to continue representing the client in a lie.
One certainly also has to wonder what information the Cdn govt was given, and when. It has been accused, loudly and at length, of not looking out for this Cdn citizen's interests. It has been accused of exchanging intelligence with the US contrary to his interests. If Cdn intelligence *did* know the facts, it was correct to refuse to discuss anything in public, because it was bound to protect Khadr's privacy (not to mention his safety).
He is now living in Toronto and facing a divided Muslim community. His family (mother and sister in Pakistan attending to the 14-year-old brother who was paralyzed by a bullet in the firefight that killed the father) had not yet been told the whole truth when they were interviewed, but the sister said that if he had genuinely helped "the enemy", and not just pretended to in order to protect himself, she would be ashamed of him.
His position is that he is the "black sheep" son who rejected his father's exploitation and attempts to turn his children into Al-Qaeda fanatics. He resents his father hugely, and had no emotions on hearing of his death. He and his story seem credible.
Please do watch the video if you can. I looked for reports of it on CNN this morning -- after all, it is about genuine US attempts to combat terrorism (e.g. the undercover work in Bosnia) ... but it is also about the futility and wrongness of the whole Guantanamo business. Didn't see anything there.
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