Pressure is mounting to save a Canadian held in Guantanamo, reports Tamam Ahmed Jama At its annual national conference earlier this month, the Canadian Bar Association, an organisation representing the country's lawyers and judges, called publicly on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to demand that the United States release Omar Khadr, a Canadian youth who was only 15 years old when he was taken to the infamous US military prison in Cuba. "We remain convinced that the procedures for holding detainees, including denial of due process and interference with privileged communications with their solicitors, constitute an affront to the rule of law," said J. Parker MacCarthy, president of the Canadian Bar Association, in a letter to the prime minister, a copy of which was also sent to Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Mackay. "The fact that Omar Khadr was a minor at the time of his capture only makes his situation more urgent. It is not enough to accept assurances from the US government that due process is being followed. This situation demands an immediate action on the part of the Canadian government." Khadr, who is one of the youngest detainees in Guantanamo Bay, was supposed to be among the first to stand trial before the controversial Military Commissions approved by the US Congress last year. But his case collapsed in June because American military authorities failed to designate him as an "unlawful" enemy combatant. The US government is now appealing against the decision to throw out Khadr's case. The Canadian government has been criticised for failing to intervene on behalf of the Ottawa-born youth. A recent editorial in the country's leading national daily the Globe and Mail echoed growing pressure on the government to break its silence on Guantanamo Bay and demand Khadr's release and repatriation. "By its silence, Canada gave tacit consent to the United States to have its way with Mr Khadr, who was only 15 when incarcerated five years ago," the editorial stated. "Canada must now speak up for him and make clear that the US no longer has Canada's consent to detain him. No purpose is served by holding him any longer. A military tribunal threw out the charges against him in June. Any intelligence value he represents has been exhausted. After years of rough interrogations, he has paid a great deal for any crimes he may have committed, including the alleged murder of US marine Christopher Speer by throwing a grenade." Sergeant Speer was injured during a raid in July 2002 on a suspected Al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan. He died of his wounds two weeks later. Khadr who, according to US military authorities, threw the grenade that injured Speer, was shot three times during the raid and is said to have been left nearly blind in one eye. After his capture, Khadr was held in the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan before being taken to Guantanamo Bay for further "rough" interrogation. He apparently confessed that he had entered a US-occupied part of Afghanistan to gather surveillance intelligence on the local airport. "A prisoner of war and an accused criminal would have had the right to refuse to be interrogated," the Globe and Mail editorial stated. "But Mr Khadr was legally a non-person, a crushing state for anyone to survive intact, let alone a teenager in a tiny underground cell." Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, described the military prison where hundreds of men suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda and the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan are held as being "bereft of any semblance of humanity" and that the cells were "designed to stifle and suffocate the human spirit". The Globe and Mail editorial added "holding an accused juvenile in these conditions for this length of time is cruel and wrong. Canada should say so." About 30 current and former members of parliament and 61 law professors have signed a legal brief in support of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, including the Canadian youth, urging the US government to give the men access to civilian federal courts so that they could challenge the legality of their continued indefinite detention. 'We, as Canadian legal academics and parliamentarians, felt it was important to weigh in on the obligations of the United States under customary international law,' Audrey Macklin, professor of law at the University of Toronto and one of the signatories of the letter, said in an interview. The prominent politicians who have signed the legal brief include the former Canadian justice minister, Allan Rock. Canada is the only Western nation that has a citizen remaining in Guantanamo Bay. All the other Western governments which had citizens in the controversial US military prison have long ago secured the release and repatriation of their nationals. The only Australian previously held in Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, was repatriated a few months ago and is now serving a suspended nine-month jail term in his native city of Adelaide. The last of nine British citizens were brought home in January 2005 and released without charge. Britain is also currently negotiating the release of five detainees who are not UK nationals but who were residing in Britain when they were picked up overseas and taken to Guantanamo Bay. Canada has not yet officially condemned the conditions in Guantanamo Bay. Nor has it called for the camp's closure while many other countries, including close US allies in the war on terror such as Britain, have done so. In a previous letter addressed to the prime minister, the Canadian Bar Association said, "We ask that you add Canada's voice to those of other international leaders and condemn the failure of the United States to meet the underlying principles of the rule of law vis-à-vis the Guantanamo Bay detainees."
