Canada has 'no real alternative' to U.S. military's handling of Khadr: Harper TOKYO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is brushing off new documents showing Ottawa knew back in 2004 that a Canadian being held at a U.S. military base in Cuba was sleep-deprived for weeks to soften him up for interrogation.
Harper told reporters in Tokyo - where he met with the Japanese emperor and prime minister following this week's G8 summit - that Canada "frankly, has no real alternative" to the U.S. legal process.
Khadr's lawyers released documents Wednesday showing a Canadian official visiting Khadr in Guantanamo Bay was told of the measures taken to make the then-17-year-old more pliable for interviews."
Ottawa won't seek return of Khadr, Harper says
"TOKYO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will not seek to bring alleged Canadian terrorist Omar Khadr home from Guatanamo Bay prison despite the unsealing of documents that reveal Canadian officials knew that he was deprived of sleep and forced to change cells every three hours to “make him more amenable and willing to talk.”
Mr. Harper's government has long insisted that it sought and received assurances from the U.S. that Mr. Khadr was being treated humanely, but the documents dating from 2003 and 2004 – when Mr. Khadr was 17 years old – indicate Canadian officials knew of his conditions and mistreatment.
He argued that the special U.S. military trial that Mr. Khadr faces – in which he does not have the same standard of legal representation and rights he would in an ordinary criminal trial – is the only way he could be brought to answer the charges against him.
“Mr. Khadr is accused of very serious things. There is a legal process in the United States. He can make his arguments in that process,” Mr. Harper said on a visit to Tokyo after the three-day summit of G8 leaders in northern Japan."
Canada's secret documents on Khadr's treatment revealed"Secret documents unsealed late Wednesday show for the first time the extent to which the federal government knew of the conditions facing Omar Khadr inside the ultra-secret prison of Guantanamo Bay.
Canada's only prisoner held at the controversial U.S. military camp was placed in a special program that intentionally deprived him of sleep and saw him moved every three hours for 21 days in order to “make him more amenable and willing to talk” prior to a visit by Canadian officials to Cuba.
Justice Richard Mosley, in ordering the tapes to be released, has already specified that Canada “became implicated in the violation” of international law when Foreign Affairs took part in the 2003 and 2004 interviews.
The judge said the videos showed Canada had been provided material that U.S. authorities had obtained by mistreating Mr. Khadr, yet chose to go ahead with the interrogation."
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