Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Gitmo Lawyers Say Detainee Was Not Read His Rights-- Therefore He Must Be Set Free

In July 2002, Omar Khadr threw a grenade that blew up an American soldier in Afghanistan.

Khadr was wounded and captured during this same firefight.
After his capture a video was found that shows Khadr toying with detonating cord as other men including Abu Laith al-Libi assemble explosives in the same house that had been destroyed in the firefight. He was also seen planting landmines while smiling and joking with the cameraman. It has been suggested that these were the same landmines later recovered by American forces on a road between Gardez and Khowst- Wiki.

Omar Khadr will appear before a military judge on Wednesday.
His defence lawyers want him released from Gitmo because he was not read his rights.
Canada.com and LGF Quick Links reported:

Omar Khadr appears for the first time Wednesday before a military judge whose reputation for working quickly through trial preliminaries has earned him the nickname "rocket-docket."

As the prosecution presses for an early trial date, army Col. Patrick Parrish is expected to process a virtual conveyor belt of defence motions more rapidly than his predecessor, who refused to be rushed.

Khadr's defence team does not want to go to trial, arguing the proceedings before the United States war crimes commissions at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, are unfair.

But Parrish, who has been on the job for a little more than two weeks, has already shown his determination to press on.

On the weekend, he rejected a request from Khadr's defence lawyers to postpone Wednesday's hearing to give them more time to assess the implications of last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on detainee rights.

In a 5-4 decision, the court placed a question mark over the Bush administration's policy on holding foreign terror suspects, saying they have a "habeas corpus" right under the U.S. Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

Against that backdrop, navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Khadr's military-appointed defence lawyer, will use Wednesday's hearing to argue that the entire case against the Toronto-born accused terrorist should be thrown out on grounds U.S. authorities have never told him of his rights.
Omar Khadr faces five war crimes charges that include murder.

Khadr was injured in the firefight and begged to be killed...
But US medics saved his life.

Instead, of facing death, Khadr may be set free.
Look for Hollywood to come calling.

25 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:29 PM

    Release him on Parole with one of the idiots on the SCOTUS as his parole officer, and he must live at the judges home. Looking at the behavior of the SCOTUS lately they will probably welcome him as a lover.

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  2. Anonymous2:55 PM

    I just figured out that the SC decision was actually a *good* thing (at least during future 'arrests):

    Just like cops always carry a secondary 'throw away' gun in case they 'accidentally' blast a bad guy, I'm fairly certain that a lot of terrorists we'd normally have apprehended will be falling down the 'stairs' more often in the near-future, blasted because it turns out they were packin' a .38 snub-nose pistol.

    Sure, this doesn't make 'em much for getting intel out of, but at least they're dead, so there is a silver lining of sorts.

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  3. ++

    and so (to our detriment) the unintended (?)
    consequences of liberal judicial fiat begins..

    ==

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  4. Anonymous3:42 PM

    Shoot first.

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  5. Anonymous4:26 PM

    The links in the story do not show the actual quotes. Can that be corrected?

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  6. Anonymous4:34 PM

    Found the link to the actual story. Here it is:

    http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=594484

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  7. Anonymous4:48 PM

    Why couldn't we have just followed the Geneva convention????
    Had we done that ALL OF THESE FOOLS (detainees) WOULD ALREADY BE DEAD AND WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS GARBAGE.
    For those of you that may be unaware, the Geneva convention allows for fighters captured while not fighting for a country and without a uniform to be lined up against a wall and shot.
    I say from this point forward, KILL EM ALL!! In the end that's the only thing that will save this world from their evil dark vision anyway.

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  8. In a way, by this taking the SCOTUS decision to it's (il)logical extreme, his lawyer may be doing the right side a favor. Usually liberal traitors try to incrimentalize, so that we sleep through our enslavement. This slap in the face should wake some people up.

    But in reality, we need to stop dancing around the issue: some judges need to be impeached and/or tarred and feathered and set adrift, with a strong push in the direction of Cuba. We have to stop allowing the courts to make up any rule that they wish, and only a fool would go to a tyrannical court to plead that they stop acting like tyrants.

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  9. Anonymous6:33 PM

    Congress won't do squat to stop the Judiciary or set this right,fear of being forced to find a real job has produced 535 quivering spineless jellyfish afraid to upset even the tiniest fringe minority.Low lifes can't even muster the intestinal fortitude to Declare War on afghanistan after it used a terrorist group to launch an attack on us,sorry "authorized to use force" Does Not Carry The Same Political Commitment Or Show An Unwavering Determination To Destroy Our Enemy.

    M. Wilcox

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  10. Anonymous6:49 PM

    I find it funny that you mentioned nothing about Khadr's age in this whole story. Or does it not matter that he was technically a child when he ALLEGEDLY committed this act?

    Believe it or not, that matters. At least to those who believe in human rights and the law, which I assume is none of you. You'd prefer that we live in a lawless world of "shoot 'em first" savagery.

    And guess what? That makes us as bad as the ones we fight.

    It's such a sad state of affairs that we don't realize how much we are becoming like the enemy.

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  11. Anonymous8:08 PM

    Hey "Anonymous,"

    Quick question: if someone is killed by "a child" does that make them any less dead?

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  12. Anonymous8:39 PM

    Sounds like a weak argument to me, though. SCOTUS didn't say they have Miranda rights, just that they now have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. While that's a stupid decision, I don't see how how not telling someone "you have the right to challenge your detention in federal court" makes their detention illegal. They can find that out from their lawyer after the waterboarding.

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  13. Anonymous10:18 PM

    We are getting as PC as the freakin Europeans releasing scum like Abu Qatada.Terrorist bill of rights
    1.you have the right to remain dead!

    M. Wilcox

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  14. "You'd prefer that we live in a lawless world of "shoot 'em first" savagery.

    And guess what? That makes us as bad as the ones we fight."

    That's when it all went to hell, when we started shooting the Nazis in WWII before reading them their rights ...

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  15. Anonymous10:40 PM

    Easy solution: take no prisoners. It's not that the enemy follows the convention of Geneva or any other rules of engagement or laws of war anyway. Let's face it: an insurgent being captured by US forces will be treated fairly. A US soldier captured by insurgents will be murdered (and maybe tortured before they cut off his head). Why take those fucknuts prisoners? Shoot them on the spot. They show no mercy to your soldiers, so why show any mercy to them?

    'Sides, the less of them around, the better it is.

    And no, it doesn't matter whether he was a child or not. He throws a grenade, that makes him a combatant, thus he's a legal target. Child or not doesn't matter in that case.

    Human rights? Anonymous from 6:49... human rights for a savage enemy? You're kidding, right? The enemy is like a rabid dog and what do you do with a rabid dog? You shoot it.

    Besides... "He was a child" didn't go well with a Japanese court that sentenced to death a man who raped and murdered a young woman and then murdered her baby as well. He, too, was a child (by law, actually, he was a minor, but still) when he committed the crime. And I say the verdict is 100% justified. Of course, his defense came with the usual psychological crap (hard youth, and he wanted to "return to the womb of his mother" while raping the woman). Luckily, the judge didn't buy that crap. So he's going to swing and I say "well done!"

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  16. Anonymous3:28 AM

    Anonymous at 949:

    I actually didn't understand that he was a child when this took place, but that means little to me. In those countries children are brought up and treated differently. Some men marry girls under the age of 10. Boys have been used in Iraq to plant weapons and such. Children are being used as weapons of war and they will have to be treated as such until the rest of their society scorns this behavior and joins the fight against it.

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  17. Anonymous3:47 AM

    The age of this terrorist is irrelevent. In Normandy in WWII the Hitler Youth Division was made up of kids. They still needed to be fought.

    Brian Smaller
    New Zealand

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  18. Anonymous4:52 AM

    Anonymous @ 6:49 PM..

    What you don't understand is that this decision by the SCOTUS has the unintended consequence of making us behave more like the enemy. Since every non-uniformed person caught on the battlefield will have the right to challenge their detention, I suspect there will be a lot fewer such people in the future. The military will simply start shooting to kill unless they know in advance that the target has actionable intelligence.

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  19. Anonymous6:34 AM

    Congratulations, SCOTUS. You've just opened up the floodgates for Islamic scumbag terrorists to manipulate the U.S. court system to their advantage. Somewhere, Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher are wondering why they didn't get the same break.

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  20. anonymous 6:49
    "At least to those who believe in human rights and the law, which I assume is none of you."

    ***You ASSume wrong, sister. What have I told you about using that word, "ASSume"?

    "You'd prefer that we live in a lawless world of "shoot 'em first" savagery."

    ***I'd prefer we live in a world where the "shoot 'em first" rule was requisite to fighting enemies in a war zone. IMO, we don't need no stinking prisoners.

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  21. Anonymous4:30 AM

    He was on the field of battle. He just killed an American soldier.
    He had the right to give up and receive medical care or he had the right to be dispatched to hell.
    I'd say those soldiers, who captured him and saved his life, exhibited remarkable restraint.
    He is alive today because his rights were protected.

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  22. 6:49 anonymous is one of those aggravating utopians. It does not believe there are bad people in the world. Combat is something we Americans force on others. Baloney.

    Shoot first is the only correct response on the battle field dipstick. Otherwise you're dead, just like the soldier this "child" killed.

    I am so-o-o-o tired of these airheads that live in mommy's basement and can't get attached to reality. We had to put up with the same breed of numbskulls in our war. I wish they'd all go to the combat zone and 'negotiate' with these killers. I'd give money to see the look on their faces as the towel heads start sawing their head off.

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  23. Anonymous7:23 AM

    The real world that we ALL live in isn't a fair one. The guy was 15 when he was caught and detained as a terrorist. That is NOT a child. That is a young man with the ability to make choices between what's right i.e. OK and what's not right i.e. not OK. It's that freaking simple.

    This video shows nothing other than a little punk crying while being asked questions. I can imagine that he and his terrorist buddies weren't crying as they did their deeds. He gave up his rights when he decided to become a terrorist. Did he afford his victim(s) any of those rights? Oh yeah, regardless of whether or not their was a victim, the fact is he is a terrorist that got caught. So, it's pretty damn simple here - suffer the consquences.

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