BULLY FOR CANADA!Canada Is Said to Keep U.S. Detainee From Returning
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page A16
TORONTO, Nov. 25 -- A Canadian man who was imprisoned by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been released from custody, but his family asserts that Canadian authorities have refused to allow him to return home.
Rocco Galati, an attorney representing the family of Abdur Rahman Khadr, said Tuesday that Khadr, 20, was released from U.S. detention in late October and sent to Afghanistan. "He is a Canadian citizen," Galati said. "He has no other nationality and they are shipping him back to Afghanistan with no money, no identification and only the clothes on his back." Khadr was seized in Afghanistan.
Galati said Khadr called his grandmother in Toronto and told her he had tried to get help from Canadian embassies in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey. "He was denied travel documents by Canadian officials who indicated they do not want him back in Canada," Galati said.
A spokesman for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs denied the allegations. "It would be against our laws," the spokesman, Reynald Doiron, said in an interview. "That is a gross distortion of our law and values pertaining to the right of Canadian citizens to come back to Canada."
Doiron said that U.S. officials told Canadian authorities three weeks ago that Khadr would be released. "No explanation was given," Doiron said. "We were not privy to conversations Abdur Rahman Khadr had with American authorities. Our understanding is [that] by his own volition, he went to Afghanistan. That was his choosing."
Doiron said there was no record of Khadr approaching a Canadian mission for assistance. "He is a Canadian citizen," Doiron said. "It is up to him to contact us, and we will oblige."
A U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman said in a telephone interview that she could not comment on individual detainee cases at Guantanamo Bay for security reasons. "I can tell you the U.S. has discussions with many other governments regarding detainees and coordinates each detainee's transfer for release with that detainee's home government," said the spokeswoman, who asked that her name not be used.
Officials said Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian, is an al Qaeda leader with close connections to Osama bin Laden. Unconfirmed reports said that Ahmed Said Khadr and another of his sons were killed last month during a shootout with Pakistani forces at the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Abdur Khadr's brother, Omar Khadr, was arrested in Afghanistan in July 2002 after a gunfight with U.S. forces. Omar Khadr, who is still in prison at Guantanamo Bay, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. medic. The eldest brother, Abdullah, was alleged to be a former commander of an al Qaeda camp.
Canadian officials said Abdur Khadr was born in Afghanistan. Galati said his parents were traveling there at the time. They registered him as a Canadian, and he grew up in Toronto, Galati said.
What do we do with this fucker?
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What do we do with this fucker?
So what the hell do we do with this loser?
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944