Leaks: Guantanamo detainee, 16 YO Canadian Omar Khadr, interrogation video released

[Jacaylbaro]

The world got its first glimpse of a Guantanamo detainee Tuesday morning when lawyers for Toronto captive Omar Khadr released a 10-minute video of a 2003 interrogation.

 

Khadr is 16 at the time and still recovering from the injuries he received during his capture by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. He is being interviewed by a senior spy from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and fo More..reign affairs official Jim Gould, although the faces of the two Canadians have been blacked out.

 

The Pentagon forbids the release of any videos or pictures of Guantanamo detainees and for years the Canadian government has resisted any requests by Khadr’s lawyers to turn over the recording.

 

In May, lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney won a ruling at the Supreme Court that compelled the government to turn over more than seven hours of video of Khadr’s interrogation and previously classified documents on his case.

 

This morning, his lawyers posted the videos online, hoping the depictions of a weeping Khadr will create an outcry in Canada and pressure Prime Minister Stephen Harper to demand that the U.S. halt their war crimes prosecution of the Toronto man.

 

Ottawa officials have been bracing for weeks for the video's public release. "I hope Canadians will be outraged to see the callous and disgraceful treatment of a Canadian youth," Edney said in an interview.

 

“Canadians should demand to know why they’ve been lied to.”

 

Documents released by Khadr's lawyers last week raised questions about just what Canada knew concerning Khadr’s treatment.

 

Canadian officials have always publicly stating that they have “sought and received assurances” from the U.S. that Khadr was treated humanely, but the previously censored documents revealed that Gould had been told that Khadr was subjected to a sleep deprivation regime the U.S. military dubbed the “frequent flyer program.”

 

The practice is considered mental torture, according to international law and the U.S. Army Field Manual that governs military interrogators.

 

 

WATCH HERE