Highlighting the injustices engrained into the legal framework of the American War on Terror, Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, a U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps assigned to the Office of Military Commissions, spoke last Friday in Chancellor Day Hall.
According to the lawyer, military commissions are meant "solely to convict people."
Kuebler discussed his role in legal counsel for the case of Omar Khadr, a young Canadian citizen who has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for the past five years. Khadr was incarcerated at the age of 15 after a firefight in Afghanistan, where he was severely wounded. He was taken into custody after allegedly throwing a grenade which killed a U.S. medic.
Kuebler, however, maintained that this was a myth, and that many of the cases against defendants such as Khadr, now 21, are based on out-of-court statements. Despite the possible coercion tactics used by interrogators at Guantanamo to attain these statements, as well as the possibility of their falsehood, reports used to prosecute detainees cannot be investigated.
The rules of the Military Comission, which he asserted had been edited at the discretion of the American president, have narrowed the definition of concepts such as torture, to allow for "gaining intelligence."
This past August, Kuebler presented Khadr's case to the Council of the Canadian Bar Association at its annual meeting to insist that the Council use its position to pressure the Canadian government publicly in order to repatriate Khadr.
Kuebler explained that the government's current hesitations surrounding this issue may stem from the tendency to give its southern ally "the benefit of the doubt post-9/11," as well as from a concern about Khadr's family history: Khadr's father was a member of the Taliban.
René Provost, professor in the Faculty of Law and Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, concluded the talk by urging students and citizens alike to write to their representative Member of Parliament.
"The solutions to this [issue], I think, will be fundamentally political rather than legal," he said. "The model that is offered by the U.S. government to the world in Guantanamo Bay is a very dangerous model because it is represented by a government that stands for human rights and democracy around the world and to me it's an incompatible message. The Canadian government is joining in by saying nothing, and letting one of its citizens be treated in such a manner."
Sybil Thompson, a third-year law student, appreciated that Kuebler verified what is occurring in the infamous American detention centre.
"[He] confirmed that the military commissions, and indeed the detentions themselves, violate principles of procedural fairness and fundamental justice in a manner that should be incredibly disturbing to all those who value democracy and the rule of law," she said.
2008 Woodie Awards
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Peter Wilson
posted 10/23/07 @ 11:34 PM EST
Omar Khadr is already a martyr in the struggle for human rights.
Now let's see the charges and the proof.
By all accounts,
he's already been:
shot at;
been bombed;
shot at again;
wounded;
flown drugged desensitized and tethered to Gitmo;
agressively interrogated to some place "between the US Army Field Manual and the limits the US Constitution allows. (Continued…)
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