Khadr 'salvageable:' U.S. guard
Steven Edwards , Canwest News Service
Published: 2330ish, 02 Jun 08
NEW YORK - Omar Khadr's American guards at Guantanamo Bay describe the Canadian terror suspect as "salvageable," "non-radicalized" and a "good kid," according to internal reports written by Canadian government officials who've visited him at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
One also signals Khadr, 21, has begun to distance himself from his family, which many Canadians consider synonymous with terrorism because of their expressions of support for - and past involvement with - al-Qaida.
"Omar barely broached the subject of his family, beyond sharing with me a few memories, such as learning to ride a bike with his uncle in Ottawa," writes Suneeta Millington, a legal officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, who met with Khadr in Guantanamo on March 12 and 14.
"I conveyed to him that he was now allowed another phone call home, and could let the guards know when he wanted to schedule it, but he didn't seem overly keen to do so."
The reports - a second one by Foreign Affairs deputy director Karim Amegan is based on his visits with Khadr on April 8, 9 and 11 - offer the first glimpse of the person the Toronto-born youth is today.
They emerge less than a week after the controversial war crimes commission that will try Khadr was thrown into disarray with the abrupt replacement of the case judge, army Col. Peter Brownback.
"These reports are about as close as you can get to a direct recommendation by Canadian officials for Prime Minister Stephen Harper call on the U.S. authorities to return Omar to Canada," said U.S. navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Khadr's assigned military lawyer.
"We know the Canadian government is concerned about which way Omar might turn if he returns, but here we have not only Canadian officials saying he's changed as he's matured, but the U.S. guards who see him every day."
Seized at age 15 by U.S. forces after a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, Khadr is accused of five war crimes, including murder in a grenade attack that left a U.S. serviceman fatally wounded.
He spent much of his childhood in Afghanistan, where his Islamic fundamentalist father, a naturalized Canadian, helped build al-Qaida by serving as financier to its leader, Osama bin Laden.
Amegan's report says Khadr now believes he is a victim of his upbringing and seeks to redirect his life.
"He said that he is in Guantanamo because of his family and that he wants another chance," Amegan writes. "He said that he wants to train for a job that will allow him to play a useful role in society by helping others - he said 'the neediest'."
The U.S. doesn't allow media interviews with detainees but Canadian officials are granted so-called "welfare" visits with Khadr, the only western national among the remaining 270 terror suspects after other western governments negotiated to return their citizens.
The first known access Canadian officials had to Khadr in Guantanamo was in 2003, but the latest reports indicate he's much calmer than he was then, when he still faced regular interrogations - some of which his lawyers say involved coercion, possibly torture.
"Throughout my meetings with him, Mr. Khadr was friendly and in good humour . . .," Amegan writes. "Mr. Khadr spontaneously made the following comments: he finds court proceedings boring. He appreciates the opportunity welfare visits offer him to interact with people from Canada. He said that he trusts the Canadian officials who have visited him and sends his regards to them. He wonders however why Canada is so quiet on his case and commented that, while Canada was the best country in the world to live in, it was not as strong as the U.K. to defend its citizens abroad, although both countries have the same Queen."
The same U.S. military escort helped co-ordinate the meetings for both Amegan and Millington, and Amegan states he repeated what he had said to his Canadian colleague about Khadr being "good" and "salvageable."
"This opinion was also expressed by other U.S. officers encountered during my stay," said Amegan. "(The escort) said that extended detention in Guantanamo would, however, run the risk of turning him into a radical."
For now, Millington suggests, Khadr has not retained - or is perhaps letting go of - some of the fundamentalism that surrounded him as he grew up.
"Omar was praying when I first arrived for our initial visit, but did not seem bothered by missing a number of prayers over the course of our two visits, nor did he seem upset by the fact that I had not been able to find an English Qur'an in time to bring down with me," she writes.
Of the three camps run by the U.S. military's Joint Task Force, Khadr is held in the "medium security" Camp 4, where detainees can mix outdoors with one another on their respective small blocks for up to 20 hours a day, and have access to an exercise yard for two hours a day.
According to Millington, Khadr is "well liked both within the camp" and by the guards.
"JTF staff seem to look out for him by stopping by to chat on occasion, convincing him to meet with his lawyers and encouraging him to 'keep his nose clean'," she writes.
She also goes into more detail about what Khadr told her of his ambitions.
"He is particularly fixated with wanting to travel and see the world, connect to people from a variety of different cultures and . . . simply live a 'normal life' and be a normal person."
Millington says Khadr has focused on a number of specific goals, including becoming an Emergency Medical Technician, launching a charity to help "the neediest" in Africa, or "perhaps work" for the International Red Cross.
Khadr's father, killed in a 2003 raid by Pakistani forces, launched a charity that American prosecutors said channelled money to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Millington says of the younger Khadr: "He broached the topic of public scrutiny of any organization in which he is involved, and for this reason indicated he would like to conduct all work openly and transparently, under the auspices of the United Nations."
Amegan says Khadr was receiving no formal education, and despite JTF's plans to offer the "compliant" detainees of Camp 4 literacy classes in English, Pashto and Arabic, there were "currently no teachers."
"There is a TV room where movies, nature programs and highlights of international soccer games are shown," he writes. "There is also a library . . . from which Mr. Khadr borrows novels."
He indicated Khadr, who speaks English, Arabic, Pashto and Farsi, would "like to improve his writing skills" and has a dictionary "that he tries to learn things from."
"He expressed interest in learning French and asked for a book on French for beginners," Amegan writes. "He had been provided with workbooks in mathematics during a previous visit but he said that it was too difficult for him without help."
Canwest News Service 2008
Sorry GEO on this I think you following down similar lines as that crackpot Dallaire
