Supreme Court of Canada Rules Gitmo an illegal Operation [View All]

[Ichingcarpenter]

An unsurprising ruling affords cold comfort for Omar Khadr

OMAR EL AKKAD

May 24, 2008

OTTAWA -- Long before the Supreme Court of Canada issued a judgment yesterday ordering the Canadian government to hand over interrogation documents to Omar Khadr's defence lawyers, Ottawa saw the writing on the wall.

Earlier this year, a Foreign Affairs official was dispatched to Guantanamo Bay to show U.S. military defence and prosecution lawyers an example of the kind of documents that would be released if the Supreme Court decision didn't go the government's way.

The purpose of the meeting was to gauge whether the military lawyers saw any potentially classified information in the documents. (In the Guantanamo Bay military commission system - a system that just a few days ago released a heavily redacted version of a publicly available New York Times article - there isn't much information that can't potentially be deemed classified.)

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision came as no surprise, and likely does little to help Mr. Khadr's legal case in Guantanamo Bay; defence lawyers had already seen much of the information deemed releasable.

Instead, the ruling's importance lies in the fact that it represents another setback for the Canadian government, which has so far strongly resisted acting on Mr. Khadr's behalf. Indeed, for a defence team that readily admits that Mr. Khadr's only hope is for the Canadian government to act, a Supreme Court ruling that says Guantanamo Bay was essentially an illegal operation is a significant coup.

Defence lawyers were quick to note the symbolic significance of the ruling yesterday, rather than its practical effect.

"I think the most important aspect of it is that the Supreme Court has said that Guantanamo Bay is illegal," said Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler, Mr. Khadr's U.S. military lawyer. "And yet the Canadian government continues to do nothing to intervene on behalf of Omar Khadr."

The Supreme Court judges were careful in their portrayal of Guantanamo as illegal. The judges relied on U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 2004 and 2006 that found various aspects of the system to be in violation of the law. >>>>>snip

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