Teenage terrorist or confused kid -- Gitmo's youngest prisoner
Omar Khadr begged them to do it. "Kill me," he said. "Please, kill me."
Omar Khadr, is shown here in his early teens, when he was first accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
Omar Khadr, is shown here in his early teens, when he was first accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
The men looming over the bullet-riddled 15-year-old were stunned. How was he still alive? The Special Forces unit had fired several rounds into him, shooting where a grenade had been thrown that mortally wounded their medic, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer.
The air in the Afghan compound, which had been blown to bits, was a thick fog of dust. Hearts pumped from the adrenaline of a firefight. Speer was immediately choppered away. The 28-year-old father of two would die 10 days later.
The wounded teen, whose parents once lived with Osama bin Laden, was patched up and flown away too, headed for questioning at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. He would become one of Guantanamo Bay's most controversial detainees.
Khadr, now 22, is the youngest inmate and, as a Canadian citizen, the only Westerner still held at Gitmo. He is accused of receiving one-on-one training from al Qaeda and was allegedly caught on a surveillance video making and planting roadside bombs where U.S. troops traveled -- video the Pentagon will not release.
***
What happened next is disputed.
Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a father of two, was killed in Afghanistan in 2002.
As soldiers walked into the compound, Khadr emerged from the ruins, threw the grenade that killed Speer and was then shot, prosecutor Marine Maj. Jeff Groharing said.
But the defense argues that there was another man alive in the compound who could have thrown the grenade, according to a 2004 Defense Department investigative interview with another U.S. soldier who was present. The defense accidentally released the document to the media in 2007. Read the soldier's account
The soldier said he "heard moaning" and saw a man lying on his right side, then shot the man in the head and he stopped moving, according to the testimony.
"If we were allowed to go into a real courtroom, not what we have at Guantanamo, and present that evidence, the court would clearly be left with reasonable doubt," Khadr's attorney said.
"We've never said there wasn't anyone else alive in there," countered Groharing. "But that man was too banged up, his injuries were too severe for him to have thrown the grenade. We have said that Omar was the only one in a position to throw it."
Groharing also said that when the unit swept the bombed compound, they found a videotape showing Khadr and other men passing around wire, bomb caps and pliers, Groharing told CNN. And, he said, the detainee confessed several times during questioning.
The defense says those confessions were the product of torture, an allegation the prosecution denies.
Khadr claims in a 2008 affidavit that his interrogators spat on him, pulled his hair and threatened him with rape during the early weeks at Bagram. He describes a "soldier" at Guantanamo forcing him to wear a mask that made it hard to breathe and made him pass out. He said he endured this treatment "3 or 4 times."
Khadr also said he was forced to scrub the floor on his hands and knees while still wounded and describes being "terrified" at Bagram when a bag was placed over his head and barking dogs were brought into his interrogation room. Riddled with shrapnel cuts, Khadr said his interrogators nicknamed him "Buck-shot."
"I did not want to expose myself to any more harm, so I always just told interrogators what I thought they wanted to hear," the affidavit reads. Read Khadr's allegations of torture
Defense attorney Whitling said that they have no physical evidence of such treatment to back Khadr's account of torture.
Omar Khadr, is shown here in his early teens, when he was first accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
Omar Khadr, is shown here in his early teens, when he was first accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
The men looming over the bullet-riddled 15-year-old were stunned. How was he still alive? The Special Forces unit had fired several rounds into him, shooting where a grenade had been thrown that mortally wounded their medic, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer.
The air in the Afghan compound, which had been blown to bits, was a thick fog of dust. Hearts pumped from the adrenaline of a firefight. Speer was immediately choppered away. The 28-year-old father of two would die 10 days later.
The wounded teen, whose parents once lived with Osama bin Laden, was patched up and flown away too, headed for questioning at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. He would become one of Guantanamo Bay's most controversial detainees.
Khadr, now 22, is the youngest inmate and, as a Canadian citizen, the only Westerner still held at Gitmo. He is accused of receiving one-on-one training from al Qaeda and was allegedly caught on a surveillance video making and planting roadside bombs where U.S. troops traveled -- video the Pentagon will not release.
***
What happened next is disputed.
Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a father of two, was killed in Afghanistan in 2002.
As soldiers walked into the compound, Khadr emerged from the ruins, threw the grenade that killed Speer and was then shot, prosecutor Marine Maj. Jeff Groharing said.
But the defense argues that there was another man alive in the compound who could have thrown the grenade, according to a 2004 Defense Department investigative interview with another U.S. soldier who was present. The defense accidentally released the document to the media in 2007. Read the soldier's account
The soldier said he "heard moaning" and saw a man lying on his right side, then shot the man in the head and he stopped moving, according to the testimony.
"If we were allowed to go into a real courtroom, not what we have at Guantanamo, and present that evidence, the court would clearly be left with reasonable doubt," Khadr's attorney said.
"We've never said there wasn't anyone else alive in there," countered Groharing. "But that man was too banged up, his injuries were too severe for him to have thrown the grenade. We have said that Omar was the only one in a position to throw it."
Groharing also said that when the unit swept the bombed compound, they found a videotape showing Khadr and other men passing around wire, bomb caps and pliers, Groharing told CNN. And, he said, the detainee confessed several times during questioning.
The defense says those confessions were the product of torture, an allegation the prosecution denies.
Khadr claims in a 2008 affidavit that his interrogators spat on him, pulled his hair and threatened him with rape during the early weeks at Bagram. He describes a "soldier" at Guantanamo forcing him to wear a mask that made it hard to breathe and made him pass out. He said he endured this treatment "3 or 4 times."
Khadr also said he was forced to scrub the floor on his hands and knees while still wounded and describes being "terrified" at Bagram when a bag was placed over his head and barking dogs were brought into his interrogation room. Riddled with shrapnel cuts, Khadr said his interrogators nicknamed him "Buck-shot."
"I did not want to expose myself to any more harm, so I always just told interrogators what I thought they wanted to hear," the affidavit reads. Read Khadr's allegations of torture
Defense attorney Whitling said that they have no physical evidence of such treatment to back Khadr's account of torture.
posted by temporal at 2/10/2009
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