Day One in Khadr’s kangaroo court

By Alison@Creekside

Below: Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights Watch is interviewed as she leaves the courtroom on Day 1 of Obama’s first big pretrial for a military commission into the possible terrorist actions of a 14-year old. Terrible sound, I know, but well worth it for her explanation of how after Khadr has been tortured to confess at Bagram, the “clean team” comes in and tries to elicit the same “confessions” under friendlier conditions so that the new clean confessions will be admissible in court.

 
A word about Khadr’s confessions under torture. According to Eviatar, FBI agent Robert Fuller

elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces.

Well so much for confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr’s defence team has only been allowed to interview three of Khadr’s 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15-year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

In the vid above Eviatar also mentions no one knowing what the rules are. This is because Secretary of Defense Robert Gates only signed off on and issued the 2009 Manual for the Military Commissions Act on Wednesday night, 12 hours before the pretrial began, meaning that no one involved had time to read it beforehand and consequently no one knew what the rules were. After a four hour adjournment to read it, now they can’t agree on whether or not the US Constitution applies.

Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense council : “We don’t know what the law is.”

You don’t really have one, sir. That’s why it’s called a kangaroo court — it leaps over the law to a foregone conclusion. That’s the whole point.