Omar Khadr

‘’‘Omar Khadr’‘’ born September 16, 1987, is a Canadian who was captured, in Afghanistan, on July 27, 2002. He has been held in Guantanamo Bay.

Life in Canada

Khadr. like his five siblings, was born in Canada. Khadr's parents were Canadian citizens. Khadr's neighbours, and the patrons of his grandparents bakery, described Khadr as a particular sweet child.

During most of the time Khadr, his mother, and siblings, were living in Canada, his father Ahmed Khadr, was living in and working in Afghanistan. Up until 1995 Khadr's father was the field director for a charity, Human Concern International. Khadr's fathers responsibilities for HCI were to supervise the distribution of humanitarian aid.

In 1992 Khadr's father was wounded by a land-mine, and spent a year back in Canada recovering his health.

Khadr's father's ties to al Queda

In 1995 Khadr's father was arrested by Pakistani security forces, who said they had evidence that Khadr had been involved in a terrorist incident. Khadr's father was released when Canadian Prime Minister personally requested the release of an aid worker rounded up through an unfortunate mistaken identity.

It is now widely accepted that the Pakistani security officials were correct, and that Khadr's father was already involved in al Queda. It is now widely believed that Khadr's father was already diverting funds collected by the Canadian charity for humanitarian to support al Queda's activities.

HCI, the charity Khadr's father had been working for, cut their ties with him following his arrest by Pakistani security officials. But he was able to found a charity of his own.

Life in bin Laden's compound

Khadr's father moved his family to Afghanistan at this time, where they lived in Osama bin Laden's compound, and played with bin Laden's children. Khadr's father has been described as one of bin Laden's senior lieutenants.

Omar's older brother Abdurahman Khadr describes being sent to military training camps shortly after his arrival, when he was just eleven years old. All of the Khadr boys are believed to have military training when they were just children.

Capture

On July 27, 2002, fourteen year old Khadr was in a compound that was surrounded by US special forces. According to the US version of events, the Americans called on those in the compound to surrender. When they refused a firefight ensued. Sergeant Layne Morris was injured early in the skirmish. The Americans called in a bombardment.

Most press accounts of the skirmish say that Khadr killed a "medic", implying that he had attacked a noncombatant after giving his surrender. But this is incorrect. Sergeant Christopher J. Speer, was mortally wounded in this skirmish. Sergeant Speer had been trained in a medic. He has been reported to have provided some Afghani children with first aid a few days prior to the skirmish. But, on July 27th Sergeant Speer was leading the squad tasked to comb the ruins for weapons, and evidence of terrorist activity. They believed that all the occupants were dead. Sergant Speer was not serving as a medic that day. Nor had young Khadr pretended to surrender.

According to the US account Khadr threw a grenade, which mortally wounded Sergeant Speer, and was promptly shot by Sergeant Speer's comrades, taking two rounds to the chest. And some point during the skirmish Khadr was blinded in one eye.

Accusations against Khadr

A video-tape was found in the ruins showing Khadr planting mines. The Americans say that, under interrogation, Khadr confessed to entering a US occupied section of Afghanistan, for the purposes of surveillance.

Incarceration at Guantanamo Bay

There were other detainees incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay who were still just children. They were kept in a smaller compound, Camp Iguana, where they were treated humanely. They were not required to wear the orange coverals. They were provided with school teachers, and recreation. The BBC interviewed one thirteen year old child detainee, upon his return to Afghanistan. He learned to read at Camp Iguana. The two years he spent there were the only education he had ever had, and he reported being sorry to leave.

Elaine Chao the US Secretary of Labor has spoken about the responsibility to give child soldiers special treatment, to provide help for them to re-integrate into society. She has announced $3,000,000 program to help re-integrate child-soldiers in Afghanistan back into Afghan society.

But Khadr was not kept with the other child detainees.

Khadr was treated as an adult. Khadr has been reported to have been kept in solitary confinement, for long periods of time; to have been denied adequate medical treatment; to have been subjected to "short shackling", and left bound, in an uncomfortable "stress positions" until he soiled himself. In a press conference on January 16, 2005, Khadr's lawyers described how Khadr's captors took Khadr's still bound body and wiped his hair and clothes in his urine and feces.

The Speer/Morris lawsuit

Tabitha Speer, Sergeant Speer's widow, and Sergeant Layne Morris, launched a civil suit against Khadr's father's estate. They argue that Khadr, as a child, was not responsible for his actions -- his parents were. They argue that since Khadr's parents should have kept him from picking up a gun on the battlefield, they were responsible for any wounds he inflicted. Normally, under US law, one can't sue for damages that were caused by "acts of war". Speer and Morris argue that Khadr was engaged in an act of terrorism, not an act of war.

They have described the law-suit as an attempt to attack terrorism in its bank account.

[[Category: U.S. detainees|Khadr, Omar]