bobdina
04-30-2010, 11:08 AM
Lawyers Duel Over Bomb-Making Video
khadr4.30th.jpg
April 30, 2010
Miami Herald|by
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Alleged teen terrorist Omar Khadr appeared in a grainy video making bombs and reeled off a Who's Who of the al-Qaida inner circle for interrogators soon after his capture in Afghanistan, an FBI agent testified in a dramatic day at the war court Thursday.
Khadr, 23, sat through it all hunched over, at times sobbing and dabbing his eyes in what his attorney described as eye pain from shrapnel still in his eyes from his 2002 capture. He had refused all morning to put on blinders for the 15-minute ride from his prison camp to the tribunal chamber.
But back in October 2002, "He said he was proud -- and mentioned he was proud to be a soldier," said FBI agent Robert Fuller, recalling an interrogation in which Khadr claimed that before his capture he had slept with an unloaded AK-47.
At issue this week is whether the Toronto-born teen voluntarily spoke to interrogators after his capture. Tortured confessions plus those obtained through coercion, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment are forbidden under Obama-era reforms of military commissions.
Khadr, Guantanamo's youngest and last western prisoner, is slated for summertime trial for allegedly hurling a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces Soldier during the firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound near Khost, Afghanistan. Because he was captured at 15, prosecutors chose not to pursue a death penalty case.
The now-burly, bearded Khadr appeared sporadically in the 25-minute video found in the rubble of a bombed out building where he was captured. He is smooth-cheeked, with an adolescent's wisp of a mustache and sideburns, at one point sitting cross-legged on a carpet strewn with bomb-making pieces.
An adult observes, "Allah willing, we'll get a good number of Americans." Later, he appears in a nighttime image, clutching what appears to be a detonator.
Military officials refused to release the images, saying it was still disputed trial evidence. Defense lawyers want it suppressed as the fruit of coercive interrogation.
But the FBI agent cast him as a cooperative captive. Fuller said he showed Facebook to Khadr at the Bagram interrogation center in Afghanistan, and the boy picked out training camp commanders plus since-killed or captured terror suspects -- Abu Zubayda, Saif al Adel, Ayman al Zawahari and Osama bin Laden.
Khadr claimed he had last seen the al-Qaida founder at a Ramadan celebration in 1998. He was 11.
But much of the day was devoted to the brouhaha over the blackout goggles made emblematic in early Guantanamo photos of prisoners kneeling inside a cage in orange jumpsuits, held in sensory deprivation conditions.
The showdown started at 5:15 a.m., according to a prison camps lawyer, Marine Cpt. Laura Bruzzese, when Khadr complained of pain in his shrapnel-blinded eye. He was taken to the detention center hospital for a drop to ease it.
Soon after, guards took him to a windowless security van for the short trip to Camp Justice. But Khadr refused to don what troops call "his eyes and ears" -- the black-out mask and sound-deafening earmuffs.
"You're trying to humiliate me," she quoted him as saying.
Lawyers said the young man was suffering conjunctivitis, and high blood pressure, which aggravated an already painful eye condition.
A prison camps spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Bradley Fagan, said Khadr has always been taken to court in those ski-mask like blinders, which don't touch his eyes. He was slated to been seen by a military doctor as well as an optometrist later Thursday.
khadr4.30th.jpg
April 30, 2010
Miami Herald|by
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Alleged teen terrorist Omar Khadr appeared in a grainy video making bombs and reeled off a Who's Who of the al-Qaida inner circle for interrogators soon after his capture in Afghanistan, an FBI agent testified in a dramatic day at the war court Thursday.
Khadr, 23, sat through it all hunched over, at times sobbing and dabbing his eyes in what his attorney described as eye pain from shrapnel still in his eyes from his 2002 capture. He had refused all morning to put on blinders for the 15-minute ride from his prison camp to the tribunal chamber.
But back in October 2002, "He said he was proud -- and mentioned he was proud to be a soldier," said FBI agent Robert Fuller, recalling an interrogation in which Khadr claimed that before his capture he had slept with an unloaded AK-47.
At issue this week is whether the Toronto-born teen voluntarily spoke to interrogators after his capture. Tortured confessions plus those obtained through coercion, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment are forbidden under Obama-era reforms of military commissions.
Khadr, Guantanamo's youngest and last western prisoner, is slated for summertime trial for allegedly hurling a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces Soldier during the firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound near Khost, Afghanistan. Because he was captured at 15, prosecutors chose not to pursue a death penalty case.
The now-burly, bearded Khadr appeared sporadically in the 25-minute video found in the rubble of a bombed out building where he was captured. He is smooth-cheeked, with an adolescent's wisp of a mustache and sideburns, at one point sitting cross-legged on a carpet strewn with bomb-making pieces.
An adult observes, "Allah willing, we'll get a good number of Americans." Later, he appears in a nighttime image, clutching what appears to be a detonator.
Military officials refused to release the images, saying it was still disputed trial evidence. Defense lawyers want it suppressed as the fruit of coercive interrogation.
But the FBI agent cast him as a cooperative captive. Fuller said he showed Facebook to Khadr at the Bagram interrogation center in Afghanistan, and the boy picked out training camp commanders plus since-killed or captured terror suspects -- Abu Zubayda, Saif al Adel, Ayman al Zawahari and Osama bin Laden.
Khadr claimed he had last seen the al-Qaida founder at a Ramadan celebration in 1998. He was 11.
But much of the day was devoted to the brouhaha over the blackout goggles made emblematic in early Guantanamo photos of prisoners kneeling inside a cage in orange jumpsuits, held in sensory deprivation conditions.
The showdown started at 5:15 a.m., according to a prison camps lawyer, Marine Cpt. Laura Bruzzese, when Khadr complained of pain in his shrapnel-blinded eye. He was taken to the detention center hospital for a drop to ease it.
Soon after, guards took him to a windowless security van for the short trip to Camp Justice. But Khadr refused to don what troops call "his eyes and ears" -- the black-out mask and sound-deafening earmuffs.
"You're trying to humiliate me," she quoted him as saying.
Lawyers said the young man was suffering conjunctivitis, and high blood pressure, which aggravated an already painful eye condition.
A prison camps spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Bradley Fagan, said Khadr has always been taken to court in those ski-mask like blinders, which don't touch his eyes. He was slated to been seen by a military doctor as well as an optometrist later Thursday.