Something I don't understand about the Omar Khadr case

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Just from looking at it objectively.

This kid, originally from Canada (and not the US), went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. During the course of battle, he ends up killing a US Serviceman. He is captured by Americans, sent to Guantanamo without due process, and eventually charged with murder under an enemy combatant status.

Now, I think it is truly horrible what happened to our soldier, and I feel bad for his family and loved ones. And I also may add, going to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan isn't really the wisest career move.

But all that aside, looking at things from an unbiased perspective, I am left with one begging question: Why is this guy charged with murder? Why isn't he just considered a prisoner of war, subject to Geneva protections?

Looking at everything here, I fail to see anything that differentiates Khadr from any other person who has ever killed anyone else on the battlefield?

I haven't heard of any evidence that Khadr was involved in plotting any sort of terrorist plot in the United States or US interests.

Furthermore, I can't see how this would be a treason sort of situation, since Khadr is Canadian and not American. So what exactly is the jurisdictional justification here?

I am just very puzzled by the prosecution of Khadr for murder in what as far as I know, was a simple battlefield action.

[wvbygod]

1. He killed an unarmed medic

He deserves whatever he gets for it.

[The Magistrate]

3. The Casualty Rate Among Medics Is Pretty High, Sir, Traditionally

It is hardly a safe speciality. They are not supposed to be shot, certainly, but charges over it are pretty rare.

[wvbygod]

5. yeah, but when you kill the one trying to help you, it's murder

The punk is a murderer.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. He's also a prisoner of war.

And protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Just like our own troops when they blow up ambulances and weddings and what not.

[wvbygod]

13. Well then petition to set him free to go home to Taliban or Canada

I sure am not going to do anything to help the guy for murdering someone that was trying to help him.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. You don't believe in the Geneva Conventions?

So you're saying you don't care if U.S. troops get tortured and maimed when they're captured?

OK.

[Arrowhead2k1]

19. Your ignorance astounds me.

How do you know what happened? He hasn't been convicted of anything, there's no clear evidence, that we know of, that he killed anybody. How do you know for a fact that the medic was there to help him and that he purposely targetted the medic?

After all these years, do you still trust this administration with its fair handling of 'detainees'?

Look, nobody is saying he should be set free if guilty. We only want to see this country live up to its own standards of fair justice, not this 'you're an enemy combatant, so you should be treated as less than human' crap! It's not right!

[TornadoTN]

27. Wait a second, you must have gotten a different version of events or are selectively choosing them

The soldiers couldn't even tell definitively if he was the one who threw the grenade - just that he was in the area when it happened.

Beyond that, the medic wasn't even helping him - he was also in the area clearing the compound that had just been bombed. The first time they laid eyes on him was when they rounded a corner into a bombed out room and saw him crouched in a corner and severely injured.

There's a lot of testimony and some of it doesn't square with other testimony given by the soldiers. It's tragic that a soldier died, but detaining this guy in Gitmo indefinitely just doesn't seem like a fitting mode of justice by our country given the few facts that we know. Maybe he should be imprisoned in Canada for a duration (I can't say for how long, he was after all , fighting for the Taliban and his family had known radical connections to Al-Q and Bin Laden himself). This guy isn't innocent by a long shot, but it's a stretch to say that he killed the medic with 100% uncertainty and beyond a reasonable doubt.

[The Magistrate]

12. Perhaps It Would Have Been Better All Around, Sir, Had He Been Given The Coup De Grace On The Field

That happens fairly often, too.

It remains the case that this whole thing is somewhat over-blown....

[wvbygod]

14. agreed

Much simpler and prevents any future crimes.

[The Magistrate]

20. Assuming One Was Committed At All, Sir

Which does not seem to me the safest assumption to make, as it requires taking known liars at their word, concerning a circumstance that is most embarrassing for them.

But perhaps, given all that has elapsed since, it might have been a kindness....

"Cruelty in the abstract is mostly sentimentality over-cooked."

[Oregone]

33. Murder or not, it was done on a battlefield....

So why would we try him in front of Judge Joe Brown for that (not that we are)?

You are missing a point here, by being blinded by your raging hatred of this person. Law exists (or tries to) in a dispassionate bubble, which respects context and process.

[Oregone]

4. So valid legal process should be determined by the suspected crime/action?

So, we can have lynchings and mob justice perhaps for those we think harm children?

The point is not what he did, but it is the context in which he did it and the legal process that is being used to punish/try him.

[wvbygod]

6. No lynchings and mob justice allowed

That is not what is going on here. The medic was not killed in combat. He was murdered by this murderer.

This murderer must not be allowed to flee.

[Oregone]

34. But why is he not a POW?

POW's can also be "murderers".

[Arrowhead2k1]

8. Like that changes everything?

Unless this KID was able to discriminate between regular service men and a uniformed medic(while he probably threw his hail-mary nade), it doesn't really matter what type of soldier he alledgedly ended up killing. Regardless, even if he was alledged to have killed the pope himself it wouldn't justify the treatment he's getting.

[damntexdem]

24. It's not clear that he killed anyone -- that is an allegation.

In a firefight, medics do get killed.

Grenades are considered legitimate weapons in firefights; but they tend to be less selective than bullets as to whom they kill.

[TornadoTN]

29. Beyond that, they don't even know he was the one who threw the grenade

It's all speculation by the soldiers, and some of them have gave conflicting accounts of the combat that took place that day. That does happen in combat and is to be expected, but they can't say beyond a reasonable doubt that this kid (at the time) was the one who threw the grenade that killed Sgt. Speer.

[The Magistrate]

2. Your Puzzlement Is Shared By Many, Sir....

The most likely explaination seems to me simply that the fact that he is in custody at all is something of an embarrassment, and the authorities feel charging him with something is a little less embarrassing than letting him go would be....

[irislake]

7. First of all he was a child soldier

and should never have been sent to Guantanamo or charged with the "murder".

Secondly he may NOT have killed the American soldier. There were some lies told. There were two people alive when the soldiers went in not just Omar --- who was too wounded (probably) to have thrown the gernade. It is also possible that the American was killed by friendly fire since the Americans were pitching grenades over the wall into the compound. Nobody saw him throw the grenade. It is by no means certain that he did. In fact doubtful.

Thirdly he was brought up by fanatical family and never had an opportunity to come to mature understanding (at fifteen)of what he was doing. He was following Dad's orders. Father and brother were killed in battle.

Child soldiers are not supposed to be treated that way. He's the only prisoner that has been hung out to dry in Guantanamo. All the other countries have rescued their citizens that were there.

It's a complete disgrace. Stephen Harper will not back down even knowing that Guananamo is going to be shut down and was guilty of torture and war crimes.

The poor kid had been tortured then was over-joyed to see Canadian intelligence agents -- who betrayed him. When they left him alone and disillusioned after seven hours of questioning him apparently he wasn't crying "kill me" or "help me" but was crying for his mother.

I feel sick about it. Canadians should be marching in the streets to get him out of there. At least he has a decent and compassionate lawyer.

[damntexdem]

25. Yes, this is an important point: child soldiers are victims.

They should not be put into combat in the first place. That is a crime of the Taliban. The ill treatment since capture constitutes the crimes of the U.S.

[Enrique]

10. I've assumed it was because he is accused of being al Qaeda.

I think that's the distinction, I don't think anyone is in custody for fighting for the Taliban, I think they're all accused of being al Qaeda.

[irislake]

11. Some of the people posting here

are real thugs. Whatever happened to innocent till proven guilty? There were some lies and changing stories concerning what happened in the compound and nobody saw the kid kill the soldier.

[slackmaster]

15. Article 4 of the GC relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War

PeterU asks:

Why isn't he just considered a prisoner of war, subject to Geneva protections?

Here's why...

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

I believe he failed on condition 2(b).

[treestar]

18. If we the U.S. are going to consider this a "war" though, the

Taliban or any other organized resistance should count.

That's the trouble, they want a "war" on terrorists, yet the "terrorists" do not count as any group legally capable of waging a war.

[slackmaster]

22. Yup, the whole thing is a fucking charade

I wish Canada would take the moral high ground, but they gave that up years ago.

[TornadoTN]

26. That's how they play fast and loose with Geneva Convention rules

Any other rational person would recognize them as P.O.W.'s and act accordingly - but somehow we consider this a "war" yet we don't even play by the rules of war. It's what is supposed to set us apart from the rest of the world.

I don't have any sympathy for Al Queda fighters in general, but this was a kid that was raised in an environment of hatred and basically brainwashed to take the hard-line stand.

[treestar]

17. True, the conservatives sneer that those in Gitmo have no rights

because they were "picked up on a battlefield." Even that would make them POWs, but the wingnuts have other justifications for not treating them as that. Then they'll sneer at how of course people die in wars, and that can include women and children and other noncombatants who happen to get in the way, either just because or as punishment for supporting their own troops.

But when the enemy fights in the war, it's "murder." Yeah, makes a lot of sense. :sarcasm:

[TornadoTN]

21. What puzzles me is that there is really no proof that he killed that soldier

Looking at the case objectively, I can certainly see why he was taken into custody, but it should be as a P.O.W., just like any other soldier captured on the battlefield. But lets get past that for just a minute and try to understand why he's being charged with murder when there is NO evidence that he was the one that threw the grenade - he was merely in the compound after it had been bombed by F/A-18's and Apache helicopters and someone threw a grenade when they were clearing the ruins.

There's a lot of questions with this case and I think emotion (or lack thereof) clouds a lot of judgement on this. Sure, he went to fight for the enemy, but his case raises the issue of age (he was 15) and the classification of enemy combatants. We just keep falling further and further away from the Geneva Convention.

[damntexdem]

23. The difference is that the U.S. thinks it has the power to treat him as it wishes.

It asserts that it can declare a military force to be illegal, such that it is not a military force, rather an association of murderers. It then seriously claims that in a firefight, the U.S. may legally shoot at that force but that return fire from that force is illegal. It tries to make such claims not only about forces that are not official forces of states (e.g., Al Qaida) but also about forces that are (e.g., the Iranian Revolutionary Guard).

So the core of the U.S. argument is: our might makes right.

[Romulox]

28. Small point: He is a CANADIAN national, and the US isn't at war with Canada.

Civilians may not travel the world, involve themselves in armed conflicts between countries to which you have no citizenship, domicile, or connection to any legitimate militia, then slip back into the civilian population.

Not defending Gitmo in the least, but think this through...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

30. Then why isn't he being tried in a Canadian court?

I still don't understand what jurisdiction the United States has over this guy.

Moreover, I am aware of Israeli-Americans who have gone to fight for the Israeli Defense Forces. I doubt we'll ever be in an adversarial situation with Israel, but still, wouldn't that go against the theory that foriegners are unable to fight for other countries?

[TornadoTN]

31. But as a Canadian citizen, should he not be released to Canadian custody?

I see your point and I concede that it makes this case all the more difficult. There's a lot of factors that play into this one, that's for sure.

The Canadian's don't seem to want him back, whether that be by US influence or for other reasons. I still don't think there's enough evidence to say that he absolutely, beyond a reasonable doubt, killed Sgt. Speer.

[Romulox]

32. I can't see what in the world we gain by not giving him a fair trial at this point.

I think a court martial is appropriate to these circumstances, with the same procedures and rules that would be applied to a US service-person. If such a trial is sufficient for a US citizen and legitimate (i.e. uniformed) combatant, it should be sufficient as to this young man.

This is a very hard case, I will agree. I can't form an opinion of Khadr's guilt on innocence based on what I've heard.