At Khadr hearing, U.S. officer explains changing battle report

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Toronto Star

At Khadr hearing, U.S. officer explains changing battle report
Published 13 minutes ago

By Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA—A U.S. Special Forces commander testified Saturday that he altered a post-battle report about the firefight where Canadian Omar Khadr was captured to correct his “historical” record, not because he had been pressured to do so. Khadr’s previous defence lawyer had accused the military of doctoring the report to fit their case – calling it “manufactured evidence.”

Khadr, now 23, was shot and captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15 and faces a murder charge for allegedly throwing a grenade that fatally wounded U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer.

The prosecution claims Khadr was the only one alive in a compound after the grenade was thrown at the end of a lengthy firefight. The bodies of three other fighters were later recovered. But doubt was raised about the government’s case in March 2008 when it was revealed that there were two versions of the battle report written by the U.S. Special Forces commander, who can only be identified as Lt.-Col. W. due to a military judge’s order.

An early version of Lt.-Col. W.’s report stated the person who had thrown the grenade had been killed, which would rule out Khadr as the suspect. But in a near-identical report, the commander changed a single line to read that the grenade thrower did not die.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/803378--at-khadr-hearing-u-s-officer-explains-changing-battle-report

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I like that logic: who threw the grenade? why the only survivor of course.

Never mind the other logic of 'we attack you with the full might and force of the US military and if you fight back and we capture you, we charge you with murder and execute you'. Hmmm... no wonder we have to define them as this new 'outside Geneva' category of 'illegal combatant'. Otherwise we would be executing prisoners of war, and that is a freaking war crime.

[kpete]

2. Changes to key Guantanamo evidence innocent-officer says(altered field report to implicate detainee)

Source: McClatchy

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — An Army Special Forces officer testified Saturday that he altered a field report to directly implicate a Canadian detainee now being held at Guantanamo in a fatal grenade attack in Afghanistan years later because he realized that he got it wrong and wanted to fix the historical record.

The officer denied suggestions from defense lawyers for Omar Khadr that he changed the report at prosecutors' urging "to make it look like Omar was guilty.”

At issue is the officer's account of the firefight, which for years said that the terrorist who threw the grenade that killed Army Sgt 1st Class Christopher Speer was also died in the July 2002 gunbattle near Khost, Afghanistan. Khadr, 23, is accused of murder for allegedly hurling the grenade. He was 15 at the time.

But the officer, identified under court rules only as Army Lt. Col. W, said he wrote that the man who threw the grenade that killed Speer also died because he mistakenly misunderstood that Khadr had died in the same assault as Speer.




Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93270/changes-to-key-guantanamo-evidence.html

[OnyxCollie]

3. K&R. nt

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R