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rfmcdonaldFrom the Canadian Press, "Lawyers, advocates dispute Harper claim of 'no real alternative' on Khadr".
I've said before that Canada has had too many torture-related scandals of late, right?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is playing fast with the facts when he says the Conservative government has "no real alternative" to the U.S. legal process in the Omar Khadr case, say the Canadian detainee's lawyers.
"This is a disingenuous comment from the prime minister," says Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney.
"The prime minister, through his cabinet members, particularly Mr. (Peter) MacKay, have long said that they have been assured that Omar Khadr was being well treated, when in fact the Canadian government well knew that was not the case," Edney said in a telephone interview from Edmonton.
The prime minister tried Thursday to distance his Conservative government from explosive new documents released by the Foreign Affairs Department.
The documents show Canadian officials knew in 2004 that the U.S. military was depriving the then-17-year-old Khadr of sleep for weeks to soften him up for interrogation.
Khadr is accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 at the time of the alleged incident.
Speaking in Tokyo, where the prime minister met with Japan's emperor and prime minister, Harper said the previous Liberal government knew about Khadr's treatment in Guantanamo Bay, yet did nothing.
"The previous government took a whole range, all of the information, into account when they made the decision on how to proceed with the Khadr case several years ago," said Harper.
"Canada has sought assurances that Mr. Khadr, under our government, will be treated humanely. We are monitoring those legal processes very carefully."
[. . .]
In July 2007, a Canadian federal lawyer dismissed concerns about the continued interrogation of Khadr, arguing that investigators had gained useful information after questioning him. That was a year after the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York issued a scathing report detailing alleged abuses and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including Khadr.
Human-rights advocates, opposition politicians and Britain's top law societies have all urged the Harper Tories to take urgent action in securing Khadr's release.
They accuse the Conservatives of being two-faced by refusing to act on Khadr's behalf while decrying human-rights abuses in China and elsewhere.
"It boggles my mind that this prime minister is prepared to criticize China over human rights and is prepared to lambaste Mexico for the way its criminal justice system is applied to a Canadian," said Edney.
"But when you have a young Canadian who is in Guantanamo Bay whom Canadian courts have said has been abused and tortured, our government remains silent."
[. . .]
The prime minister could have Khadr released from Guantanamo Bay with a single phone call, says University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran.
"Without exception, every other leader of a Western country has got their citizens out of Guantanamo," Attaran said.
"What is being done to Omar Khadr right now rests squarely on the shoulders of Prime Minister Harper," added Navy Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military attorney.
Kuebler accused the Canadian government of knowingly hiding behind false U.S. assurances regarding Khadr's treatment in allowing him to be detained in Cuba.
[. . .]
The officials who wrote the report, but did not formally object to Khadr's treatment, should be prosecuted under Canada's Criminal Code, said Attaran.
"Canadian officials at Foreign Affairs appear to have been complicit in the torture," he said.
"And there's no doubt in my mind that they're guilty of aiding and abetting torture, criminally . . . . It is a criminal offence."
I've said before that Canada has had too many torture-related scandals of late, right?
