In a major rebuke to the Canadian government, the Canadian Supreme Court determined today that the United States violated the human rights of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who has been held at Guantanamo since he was 15, and that Ottawa shared culpability by allowing its intelligence agents to interview Khadr and share that information with US authorities.
“Today the Supreme Court of Canada said what the Canadian government has refused to acknowledge – that Omar Khadr’s rights as a Canadian citizen have been violated at Guantanamo,” said Aisling Reidy, Senior Legal Advisor at Human Rights Watch. “We hope this might provoke Canadian authorities to intervene on Khadr’s behalf.”
Khadr has been detained in Guantanamo Bay detention center for almost six years. He has been charged with murder before a military commission for allegedly throwing a grenade during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that killed US Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, along with other offenses.
In February and September 2003, Canadian officials, including Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents, interviewed Khadr at Guantanamo and shared that information with US authorities. Khadr’s attorneys have long argued that these interview records are critical to his defense.
The court found that, at the time Canadian officials interviewed Khadr, “the regime providing for the detention and trial of Mr. Khadr …constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights protected by international law.”
The justices concluded that Canadian officials participated in a process that violated Canada’s international human rights obligations, and that Khadr is entitled to invoke his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a remedy, the court ordered that Khadr be given access to all records of interviews conducted by Canadian officials with him in 2003 at Guantanamo Bay.
“The court has made it clear that Canada cannot ‘piggyback’ on the US human rights violations at Guantanamo in order to avoid its own human rights and domestic law obligations,” said Reidy.
Human Rights Watch has long argued that the military commission process in Guantanamo is fundamentally flawed and that the detainees’ trials should be transferred to US federal court. Of particular concern, the commissions allow the use of evidence obtained through cruel and inhumane interrogations, so long as they took place before 2006 and are deemed “reliable” by a judge, and fail to incorporate any juvenile justice safeguards.
Human Rights Watch has called on Canada to intervene to demand that Khadr receive a fair trial in federal court or, alternatively, to release Khadr and repatriate him to Canada for rehabilitation.
Human Rights Watch, along with the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Clinic, filed a brief on behalf of Khadr in his case before the Canadian Supreme Court.
