Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr (born September 19, 1986 in Toronto ) is the fourth child of the Khadr family from Canada . He was at the age of 15 years by American forces after a firefight on July 27, 2002 in which an American soldier of a special unit was killed in Afghanistan taken into US military custody. During this attack, Khadr was seriously injured by the explosions, lost his left eyesight and was hit by two bullets in the back while lying on the ground.

First, Omar Khadr was held in Bagram Military Prison for three months . For the next 8 years he was detained without charge or trial in the United States Government's Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention center in Cuba and suffered both mental and physical torture . Instead of being viewed as a minor and treated appropriately as required by international law , Omar Khadr was classified as an enemy fighter and refused to contest the legality of his detention. It was not until November 2004, over two years after his arrest, that he was allowed to speak to a lawyer .

Omar Khadr was put on trial before a military commission for the first time in 2005. However , the system of military commissions established by President George W. Bush was declared unconstitutional in 2006 by the US Supreme Court . It was replaced by a similar system based on the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006. His charges related to an amended version of the 2006 MCA signed by President Barack Obama in October 2009.

On May 26, 2010, UNICEF called for an end to the military trial against Omar Khadr. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, when examining compliance with the Optional Protocol “Participation of Children in Armed Conflict” of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, called on the US not to bring any person to trial before a military tribunal who was a child in an armed conflict was imprisoned. Radhika Coomaraswamy , the UN Special Envoy for the Children and Armed Conflict Program, warned the US against setting a dangerous precedent by continuing Omar Khadr's military trial and called on the US and Canadian authorities to work together to find a more appropriate solution.

It was not until August 10, 2010 that Omar Khadr was able to answer before a military tribunal . His lawyer had managed to get the release of the originally classified video, in which Omar Khadr is seen being interrogated by Canadian intelligence experts. There, Khadr reports, among other things, that he has been tortured by Americans and complains about the lack of medical care in Guantanamo and the indifference of the Canadian authorities. His attorney managed to get video permission to be recorded at the trial to prove that Omar Khadr was being pressured to extort his confessions.

On October 31, 2010, Khadr was symbolically sentenced to 40 years in prison, of which he was to serve eight more years in Guantanamo Bay. He pleaded guilty to the charges of murder , attempted murder, conspiracy , espionage and supporting a " terrorist organization ". Among other things, he admitted to having killed the US soldier with a hand grenade in 2002. His admission of guilt was part of a mitigation agreement with the US authorities.

The Supreme Court in Canada ordered Omar Khadr to be compensated by the Canadian government. The main reason for this decision was that Canadian officials had participated in the interrogations at the Guantanamo camp despite knowing that he had received inhumane treatment while he was illegally detained. The statements obtained in this way were passed on to the US authorities and thus contributed to the prolongation of the illegal detention.

After ten years in prison in Cuba Khadr was the end of September 2012 at the age of 26 years from the US Guantanamo prison in the maximum security prison Millhaven Institution in Bath in the province of Ontario moved. He was supposed to serve the remainder of his seven-year term there.

On May 7, 2015, Omar Khadr was released on parole. In 2017, he received compensation of 10.5 million Canadian dollars (approximately 7.1 million euros) from the Canadian government

His fate is unique, he is the youngest person to have ever stood before a court as a war criminal . Khadr, who is a Canadian citizen, was the last citizen of a “western country” still in Guantanamo. His homeland, Canada, refused to apply for extradition or repatriation despite urging from Amnesty International .

The events in Khadr's life were filmed in the documentary Guantanamo's Child , directed by Patrick Reed, Michelle Shephard and Peter Raymont.

literature

• Michelle Shephard: Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr. John Wiley & Sons, New York 2008. ISBN 0470841176

Web links

Commons : Omar Khadr  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Omar Khadr Guantanamo video alarms human rights activists Spiegel Online, July 15, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 40 years in prison for Canadian Guantanamo prisoners in: Tages-Anzeiger from November 1, 2010
2. ↑ Guantanamo detainee Khadr to serve 8 more years in prison in: CNN of November 1, 2010
3. ↑ Guantanamo's youngest is allowed to leave. Khadr return to Canada in: Spiegel Online from September 29, 2012
4. ↑ Release notice in: freeomar of May 7, 2015
5. ↑ Compensation of millions: Canada apologizes to Guantanamo prisoner . In: Spiegel Online . July 7, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 13, 2017]).