Via Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A military prosecutor has filed charges against an Australian, a Yemeni and a Canadian held at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday.
"The Chief Prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions has sworn charges against Guantanamo detainees David Hicks of Australia, Salim Hamdan of Yemen, and Omar Khadr of Canada," the Pentagon said in a statement.
The move was the first step toward trial under a new system of military commissions set up by the Bush administration last year.
[...]
The prosecutor filed charges against Hicks of providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war, the statement said.
The charges filed against Hamdan were conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.
The prosecutor filed charges against Khadr of murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, spying, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism, the statement said.
Our so-called "new" government has been silent about the fate of young Omar Khadr who was picked up in Afghanistan at age 15 and whose lawyers have exposed allegations of torture since he's been in Gitmo.
Meanwhile, the case of Australia's David Hicks has become a cause celebre in his native country and according to the newspaper The Age, US prosecutors waited until the day after Hicks' lawyers left Gitmo to announce the charges. What was the point of doing that? What a slap in the face.
Hamdan's case is, of course, now infamous. (See: Hamdan vs Rumsfeld). His Supreme Court case forced the Bush administration to back off its war crimes tribunals which eventually led to the ass backwards Detainee Bill that gave Bush powers no single person should ever have.
Besides the obvious need to go ahead with the Hicks and Hamdan trials, which have received the most publicity of all of the detainees currently held in Gitmo, the choice of Khadr is interesting especially since Bush was boasting about the supposed 14 'high-value' detainees the US government had finally moved from those overseas secret CIA prisons to Gitmo. When will they be charged and how much of their testimony will have been coerced via torture?
The prosecutors may have opened the floodgates to cries of outrage by reminding everyone that they've had a Canadian teenager imprisoned in Gitmo without charges for years now.
And what will our government do about his fate now? It's ironic that on the same day these charges were filed, some prominent Canadians including Conservatives - John Manley, Joe Clark, Lloyd Axworthy, Flora MacDonald, Bill Graham and Pierre Pettigrew, all former foreign affairs ministers - were urging Stephen Harper to speak up about Gitmo:
As former Canadian foreign ministers, we are deeply concerned by how the U.S.-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flagrantly violates human rights, undermines the rule of law, and sends a signal to other governments that it is acceptable to abuse the rights of their citizens.
Many government leaders, United Nations human-rights experts and organizations such as Amnesty International, have called on U.S. President George Bush to close Guantanamo. Canada has played a key role in defending human rights, but, so far, the Canadian government has been notably silent on this matter.
We urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to speak up. He must press the U.S. government to deal with Guantanamo detainees, and all other detainees held in the "war on terror," in a manner consistent with international human-rights standards. He should appeal to the U.S. to respect the rule of law and close Guantanamo.
[...]
Today, Guantanamo holds more than 400 detainees, including Omar Khadr, a Canadian. Mr. Khadr was a minor when he was apprehended by U.S. forces in Afghanistan more than four years ago. At Guantanamo, he reports being ill-treated and threatened with transfer to countries to be tortured. He is currently before one of the military commissions.
The U.S. government says that Guantanamo is needed to "fight terrorism" and "protect security," and that the response to "terrorist" threats cannot be bound by previously agreed international laws.
But abusing human rights in the name of "security" undermines the very values that the "war on terror" claims to defend. It also sends a signal to other countries that it is acceptable to disregard human rights — in recent years, there has been a disturbing increase in serious human-rights violations carried out in many countries under the name of "fighting terrorism."
[...]
We join Amnesty International, on the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-run detention centre, in asking Mr. Harper to press Washington to take the following minimal steps toward closing Guantanamo:
Release detainees immediately, unless they are to be charged and tried under recognized international standards of justice.
Do not send detainees to countries where they may face human-rights abuses.
Ensure that the ill-treatment and torture of detainees stop immediately.
Forbid the use of evidence obtained under torture or ill-treatment.
Permit UN and other international human-rights experts full and private access to detainees.
Bravo to all of them!
Will Harper join them?
That's unlikely:
July 2006
Harper’s determination not to ruffle U.S. feathers is evident in the case of Omar Khadr, the lone Canadian detainee being held at the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled the Guantanamo military tribunals, where Khadr was to be tried on murder charges, are illegal and his lawyers want Canada to request his extradition.
But Harper has no plans to raise Khadr’s case with Bush, say officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, who call the terrors tribunal a matter of internal U.S. policy.
He had no qualms about ruffling the Chinese government's feathers over their human rights abuses but apparently his concern for his cozy relationship with Bush and his brush off of Khadr's fate as a "matter of internal U.S. policy" provide enough justification for his silence in this case.
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