Omar Khadr
Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen. In the Summer of 2002, aged 15 years, he was living with his mother and sister in Waziristan in the North West region of Pakistan close to the Afghanistan border. He was taken prisoner by the US Military on 27 July 2002 at the village of Ayub Kehyl ( Map ) His capture followed a firefight in which several of his adult companions and a US soldier were killed. He was severely injured himself having been shot twice in the back and blinded in one eye.
He has been held prisoner by the US ever since, initially at Bagram and since October 2002 at Guantanamo Bay. There is no dispute that he has suffered severe mistreatment during his captivity. His chief interrogator at Bagram was Joshua Claus, who later pleaded guilty to abusing detainees to extract confessions following the in-custody death of wrongly accused taxi driver Dilawar that same year. [1]
He is due to go on trial before a US Military Commission on 9 August 2010.
As of August 2010 the WikiPedia Omar Khadr page is a fair and comprehensive account of both his early life and events since he arrived in Afghanistan in 2002. [2]
The Canadian authorities have recently refused to extradite his elder brother Abdullah to the US. Like his brother he maintains - with considerable credibility - that he made his confession only after suffering serious and prolonged abuse at the hands of his captors. [3]
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