Khadr’s fate in limbo after terrorist charges dropped

Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service

Published: Tuesday, June 05, 2007

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO - Omar Khadr was marched into the courtroom Monday in the grasp of two burly military guards, ready to face murder and terrorism charges almost five years in the making.

The alleged al-Qaida member was led out less than an hour later with his legal fate once again in limbo, after a U.S. military judge stunned American prosecutors by throwing out the Pentagon's case against the 20-year-old Canadian.

Omar Khadr: Judge said war crimes tribunal lacked jurisdiction

While Khadr remains in U.S. custody, the ruling by Army Col. Peter Brownback also threatens to derail the military commissions process established by President George W. Bush to try al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The significance of this ruling was enormous," said Col. Dwight Sullivan, the chief military defence lawyer for Guantanamo detainees. "What we have seen today is the latest demonstration that the military commissions system does not work ... The commission is an experiment that failed and we don't need any more evidence that it is a failure."

In his ruling, Brownback said the war crimes tribunal lacked jurisdiction to try Khadr because the U.S. government had made no determination whether the Canadian was an "unlawful enemy combatant" - a finding required by Congress to proceed with the case.

Khadr, accused of throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer in 2002, had been classified by a combatant status review tribunal only as an "enemy combatant." But that ruling left open the technical possibility Khadr may have been legally fighting American forces under the laws of war, Brownback said.

"A person has a right to be tried by a court he knows has jurisdiction over him," Brownback said. Otherwise, he said, "a person could be facing trial for months without knowing if the court had legitimate jurisdiction."

Dennis Edney, Khadr's Canadian lawyer, said the decision shows that "rules are getting made up as they go along" at Guantanamo, and he called on Ottawa to begin efforts to have his client returned to Canada.

"You cannot have a trial without law," Edney said. "If this system is not good enough for Americans, why is it good enough for Canadians?"

Brownback said his decision does not preclude prosecutors from charging Khadr again in the future. Military prosecutors immediately requested 72 hours to decide whether they should appeal the judge's ruling.

Meantime in Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay instructed Canadian diplomats to follow up on the case with the relevant U.S. authorities.

"It is our understanding that the decision is a procedural one at this stage and we are keeping a very close watch on this file," MacKay's spokesman Dan Dugas said.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day brushed by reporters, saying only that the government is "still waiting to hear the full story there; we don't have all the details yet."

Opposition critics called for intervention by the minority Conservative government, suggesting Khadr be returned to Canada.

"I think every Canadian is concerned about the conditions in Guantanamo," deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters. "Mr. Khadr now appears to be in a situation of legal limbo, legal uncertainty. The Canadian government should take up his case actively."

"Whatever we may think about Mr. Khadr and his past, he is a Canadian citizen with the rights of a Canadian citizen and the government should take up his case actively with U.S. authorities," Ignatieff added/

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said the Khadr ruling was a minor technical hurdle that could be fixed with a new hearing to establish the young man's status as an illegal fighter.

"We believe that Congress intended to grant jurisdiction under the Military Commissions Act to try individuals, like Mr. Khadr, who are being held as enemy combatants," said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

But the Bush's administration's problems may extend far beyond the Khadr case, with implications for all 380 detainees held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo. The Pentagon has said it plans to prosecute as many as 80 Guantanamo detainees, including 14 high-value detainees like alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The dramatic developments Monday marked the second time military charges against Khadr have been quashed since he was first sent to Guantanamo in October 2002.

Last year, the Bush administration had to scrap an earlier version of the military commissions after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they violated international law.

Human rights groups attending Monday's hearing said the dismissal of Khadr's charges further underscores the deep flaws in trying alleged terror detainees in an entirely untested court system.

The Pentagon has so far successfully prosecuted only one case at Guantanamo. Australian David Hicks, a convert to radical Islam, was sentenced to nine months and returned to his home country after pleading guilty to conspiracy after the White House came under political pressure from Australia.

"If the U.S. government is wise, this will be the fatal blow to the commissions," said Jennifer Daskal, the U.S. program director for Human Rights Watch.

"Federal courts around the world have successfully prosecuted dozens of terrorism cases since 9/11. Compare the military commissions - there has been one conviction. To say the scoreboard is lopsided would be an understatement."

Hicks's case differs from Khadr's, however, since he was sentenced by a military tribunal and Khadr's charges have been thrown out on jurisdictional grounds.

Khadr, who had not been seen in a military courtroom for more than a year, stared impassively during the proceedings, at times watching the legal arguments on a closed-circuit television screen at the defence table. He refused to stand when Brownback entered the courtroom and did not speak to his lone U.S. military attorney, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler.

After almost five years in detention at Guantanamo, Khadr is no longer the young adolescent seen in dated photographs.

His hair and beard have grown out into long, bushy curls. He entered the courtroom in an olive-green detainee uniform with rubber flip-flops, a far cry from the Roots T-shirt and khaki pants he wore at an earlier appearance in January 2006.

Khadr spoke in whispers only to Edney, who was granted "foreign attorney consultant" status to advise him on his defence.

Khadr is the son of Ahmed Khadr, an al-Qaida financier, who was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003. Omar's brother, Abdullah, is facing possible extradition to the U.S. on accusations of selling weapons to al-Qaida.

Zaynab Khadr, Omar's sister, said Monday the family was "surprised" and "happy" about the judge's ruling.

Still, Khadr will likely remain imprisoned indefinitely because the Pentagon believes it has a strong terror case against. He had been charged with murder, attempted murder, spying, conspiracy and providing material aid to terrorists, all stemming from his activities in Afghanistan in 2002.

The U.S. contends it can continue to hold Khadr indefinitely until the war with al-Qaida is over.

"The ruling does not mean that anyone who is being held here is going to get out earlier than they would have otherwise," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project.

Opposition MPs in Ottawa, however, argued that Canada should look to the case of the Australian, David Hicks, in dealing with Khadr.

"This is an opportune time with the charges having been withdrawn for the Canadian government to step in," Comartin said. "I think they have a strong argument to be made. This individual was 15 years of age when the alleged crime took place. He was, by all intents and purposes, from what we understand, a child soldier. We should be invoking that treaty and insisting on the Americans treating him accordingly."

Comartin said that while the U.S. and Australia have brought Guantanamo Bay detainees back to their own prison systems after guilty pleas, the Canadian government has had minimal contact with Khadr.

"I think the most extensive contact has been CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) down there interrogating him," he said. "Our consul people have really had little instruction to do anything."

With files from Juliet O'Neill

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=a6c2d6f1-b2ee-4ce7-8d67-0733eac4fa18&k=70107

Immigration Raid Leaves Sense of Dread in Hispanic Students

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN; May 23, 2007 - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/education/23education.html...

WILLMAR, Minn.

The day before everything happened, Alex Sorto left Willmar High School as usual at 2:30, and grabbed a ride to his night job as a janitor at the Jennie-O turkey processing plant. He had been working there for four months, saving money for college tuition, and hoping to study art even though his mother wanted him to be a lawyer.

Alex had already heard there were immigration agents in town, raiding the trailer parks and rented homes of the Hispanics who had flocked to this county seat on the Minnesota prairie in search of work at Jennie-O. Alex believed that because he was a citizen, he was safe.

So he put in his eight hours sweeping and swabbing, and went home to finish up the portfolio that was his final project for communications class. The portfolio consisted mostly of an autobiography. In it Alex recalled his early years in Los Angeles, the child of two Honduran immigrants, and the divorce that sent him and his mother, Rosa Sorto, to a green-shingled duplex on Ann Street in Willmar.

As a senior, just a few weeks from graduation, Alex had already passed the required state tests, which were being administered at Willmar High the next morning.

So he knew he could sleep late, a rare treat on a weekday, before starting his regular classes.

The next thing he knew, at the unfair hour of 6:30 a.m. on April 13, he heard a banging noise. Groggy, he at first assumed the racket came from the family upstairs.

By the time he tugged on a pair of jeans and walked toward the living room, he could hear nearby voices shouting. He saw his mother on the couch, being peppered with questions by four immigration agents — questions about her papers, questions about his, questions about two single men who rented rooms from them. In his entire life, all 18 years, Alex had never seen her so close to crying.

In the end, the agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement accepted the proof that Alex and his mother, who has permanent resident status, were legal. The two renters, Roberto and Augustine, were led away in handcuffs, Roberto wearing only his boxer shorts.

Then Ms. Sorto discovered how the agents had apparently entered her apartment; the window of the locked side door, intact the previous night, was now broken.

Even after all the tumult, Ms. Sorto insisted that Alex go to school. Even though it was 8:30, and he had no classes for another hour, she drove him there. He watched her hands quake as she tried to steer. In art class, his favorite, he could not get his pencil to move. All he could think about was what would become of him if his mother were taken away.

Such was the triumph of Operation Cross Check, the federal raid against illegal immigrants that went on for four days last month in this community of about 18,500 people. To the Department of Homeland Security, the operation was a success, catching a convicted sex offender and several welfare cheats among its 49 arrests. In a news release announcing the toll, an immigration enforcement director for Minnesota said, “Our job is to help protect the public from those who commit crimes.”

Yet more than half of those arrested had committed no crime other than being in the United States illegally, doing the jobs at Jennie-O that prop up the local economy. And, as the experience of Alex Sorto demonstrates, the aggressive, invasive style of the sweep instilled lasting fear among Willmar’s 3,000 Hispanics, many of them students born or naturalized in the United States. These young people are the political football in America’s bitter, unresolved battle about immigration.

“All of us are scared,” said Andrea Gallegos, a junior at the high school. “When you go to school, you don’t know if your parents will be there when you come home. I don’t feel safe anywhere — walking to the school bus, walking outside the school building.”

Sharon Tollefson, a guidance counselor, had one promising student vanish in the aftermath of the raid. The young man, whom she identified by only his first name, Santiago, had been attending both day and night classes to graduate this spring. Ms. Tollefson was helping to arrange for him to visit a local college, where he planned to study law enforcement with the goal of becoming a police officer.

The first morning of the raids, April 10, Santiago took his required state test in writing. The next day, when he was supposed to sit for the math exam, he did not show up at school. Ms. Tollefson has since heard rumors that he was deported to Mexico.

“He was working his fanny off,” Ms. Tollefson said, almost wistfully, in an interview last week. “I keep saying I’m not taking him off my roster. I can’t believe he won’t be coming back.”

THE objections to the immigration raid go far beyond the anecdotal. A group of about 30 Hispanic residents of Willmar, including Alex and Rosa Sorto, has filed suit in United States District Court in Minneapolis, alleging that the immigration and domestic security agencies violated the Constitution. The suit maintains that the armed officers engaged in racial profiling, and that they broke into private homes without search warrants as part of a “campaign of terror and intimidation.”

Tim Counts, a spokesman for the immigration agency in Minnesota, declined yesterday to answer the suit’s allegations in detail, beyond saying that the operation was “fully within the law and appropriate.” He also said that homes were entered only with the permission of residents, and added, “We will make our case in the court of law.”

When Alex Sorto moved to Willmar in the late 1990s, he said he kept quiet about his past. He felt as if he was the only child in school with divorced parents. Over time, he grew comfortable enough to share the secret without being ostracized.

Since that April morning, Friday the 13th, he has reacquired the habit of silence. His communications teacher suggested that he try to put the whole experience out of his thoughts. But she isn’t the one who worries about what could happen if his mother gets stopped by “la Migra,” as the immigration agents are known, on a day she left her driver’s license at home.

“This was the year everything was supposed to go right for me,” Alex said. “And then all this happened.”

Stalled Refugee Appeal Division Gets a Nudge

Embassy, May 30th, 2007
NEWS STORY

Voted into law in 2001, the Refugee Appeal Division remains non-existent following three governments. Now a new bill is on its way in an attempt to rescue the still-born law.

By Lee Berthiaume

Opposition MPs and human rights activists are hoping a private member's bill will push the government to enact another piece of legislation and establish an appeal mechanism for asylum-seekers.

Parliamentarians are expected to send Bill C-280–which would require the government to establish a Refugee Appeal Division–to the Senate following a vote today, a week after Amnesty International raised concerns about the division's absence in its annual report on the state of human rights around the world.

"We don't see [the Refugee Appeal Division] anywhere in the near future, but the determination within human rights and refugee organizations and a significant number of parliamentarians remains high," said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, "and we won't relent, we won't give up, until this very notable shortfall in Canada's refugee laws is corrected."

When the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien overhauled the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2001, it decided to include an appeal division, which advocacy groups and immigration lawyers had been calling for since the Immigration and Refugee Board was established in 1988.

As a trade off, however, the two-member boards that heard applicants was reduced to one member. At the time, said Mr. Neve, a former IRB member and immigration lawyer, it was felt that trade off was acceptable.

"Then to turn around and find out that, contrary to the will of Parliament, the safeguard isn't going to be implemented, was a significant disappointment to us, obviously, and continues to be," he said.

"We would not have believed for a minute that a significant piece of legislation, drafted and introduced by the government of the day, voted for and supported by Parliament, would then almost instantly be partially abandoned, ignored and overlooked by that very same government."

Originally, the Liberals said they needed to deal with the IRB's massive backlog of cases, which at one point numbered tens of thousands, before implementing the appeal division. The fear they expressed was that doing so prematurely would only increase the backlog as applicants take longer to go through the system.

That backlog was all but eliminated as of last year. But since taking office in January 2006, the Conservatives have, for whatever reason, appointed only a handful of new IRB members despite the screening of about 50 potential candidates. The government has also failed to re-appoint members whose terms have expired. As a result, about one-third of the IRB's 156 positions are vacant, and the backlog is increasing again.

At the same time, the government has been accused of politicizing the appointment process by doing away with an advisory board that was responsible for screening potential candidates. That prompted a number of high-level resignations at the IRB earlier this year.

Last week, Immigration Minister Diane Finley announced Canada will be accepting up to 5,000 Bhutanese refugees who have been living in eastern Nepal since the early 1990s. The announcement came a week after the government agreed to accept 150 Vietnamese refugees who have been living in the Philippines since the 1970s.

Mr. Neve said refugees accepted from abroad go through a different process than asylum-seekers and immigrants who apply once they're in Canada.

"There are many who feel that's where Canada's main, or even entire, focus should be," he said. "That we should be able to totally decide and control through visits to refugee camps and other locales abroad who it is we should accept and bring to Canada as refugees.

"There's always been tension between those two systems, playing one off against the other. And our view is there's a need for both. We should have a vibrant overseas resettlement program that's looking for deserving, high-priority cases abroad and bringing them to Canada for resettlement. But we have to recognize that there are those who will make it here of their own volition."

Since 2001, two Liberal governments and now the Conservatives have refused to implement the division despite reports that, at least in the early stages, plans to do just that were in the advanced stages.

In testimony to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Nov. 7, then-immigration minister Monte Solberg said: "I'm concerned that the system can be tied up for months and years on end because of the various avenues of appeal people have.

"I'm not opposed to having a discussion about the RAD, but it has to be done in concert with a larger discussion about making the whole system more efficient."

While Ms. Finley's office did not respond to requests for information, those concerns were repeated during discussion of Bill C-280 in the House on Monday.

"Implementing this legislation would be unfair to refugees as it would add months to the process," Conservative MP Nina Grewal said. "While our in-Canada refugee determination process is fair and even generous, many have said that it is already complex, slow and costly. As we deal with these realities, we must also ensure that we are able to help individuals who really need protection."

Liberal Immigration critic Omar Alghabra said in the past, the Liberal governments of the day were working through some challenges, like the backlog, that made implementing the appeal division impossible.

But Mr. Alghabra said the Conservatives have only themselves to blame for the number of cases pending increasing again given their handling of the IRB.

"It's either they don't care about the system, or they are trying to politicize it," he said. "This is not just a matter of fairness. It's a matter of security."

He said if the Liberals were in power they would be going forward with establishing an appeal division because the backlog had been reduced.

NDP Immigration critics Bill Siksay said it is "ridiculous" that Bill C-280, which was introduced by Bloc Québécois MP Nicole Demers, is even needed.

"Here we have a piece of legislation to implement legislation that's already been passed by Parliament," he said. "I don't think anything could be sillier. And yet I think it's very, very important that Parliament speak again on this issue."

Experts and advocates have warned that IRB members have a heavy responsibility because they must decide whether an asylum-seeker's story is credible and whether to let them stay in the country or send them back, which potentially is a life or death decision.

Mr. Siksay hopes Bill C-280 will increase pressure on the government to implement the appeal division, though he acknowledged even if the Senate eventually approves the legislation and it becomes law, there's nothing saying the government can't ignore it as well.

"But I think at some point they have to break down and say: 'This is what the elected representatives of Canadians have said on two occasions. When are we going to get on with this?' The extra pressure, I think, means a lot in this circumstance."

The Amnesty International report also raised concerns with the Canada-U.S. "safe third country" agreement and the failure of immigration laws to ensure individuals, like Mahmoud Jaballah, are not deported to countries where they face a serious risk of torture.

http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/may/30/refugeeappeal/

Broken vows, festering ill will blamed for native protester's death

Scathing report. Ottawa urged to settle land claims

AJAMES COWAN AND APRIL LINDGREN, CanWest News Service

Published: Friday, June 01, 2007

After years of examining the 1995 death of native protester Dudley George at an Ontario provincial park, commissioner Sidney Linden laid blame yesterday for the fatal shooting on the police and governments.

And, as Ontario's aboriginal affairs minister offered apologies, the commissioner in charge of the Ipperwash Inquiry said: "the most urgent priority is for the federal government to return" the land to local native bands "immediately."

In Ottawa, federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice pledged to fulfill Linden's recommendation.

"We'll do something immediately. I've made it very clear we intend to transfer the land back to the First Nation. It has to be done in an orderly way though, where it is safe," Prentice said, citing environmental and other concerns that need to be resolved.

Ontario Provincial Police officer Ken Deane shot George on Sept. 6, 1995, two days after protesters occupied Ipperwash provincial park.

"There is no doubt that OPP acting Sgt. Deane shot and killed Mr. George and nothing in the inquiry challenges or undermines this conviction," Linden said yesterday. "However, acting Sgt. Dean should not have been in a position to shoot Mr. George in the first place."

Linden, whose inquiry began in 2003, said George's death occurred as result of a deadly mix of aboriginal frustration over decades of broken federal promises related to confiscated land, the provincial government's desire for a quick end to the park occupation and errors and miscommunications on the part of the OPP.

In the Ipperwash case, which is unresolved, Linden concluded Ottawa's refusal to honour its pledge to return native lands confiscated in 1942 for use as a military base meant the issue "festered for decades" while aboriginal frustration grew.

In 1995, a long-term occupation of an abandoned military base spread to neighboring Ipperwash Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Huron, the site of a native burial ground.

The commissioner added little has been done to defuse continuing tensions over land claims.

"The flashpoints for aboriginal protest and occupations are very likely as intense today as they were at the time of Ipperwash," Linden said.

"If the governments of Ontario and Canada want to avoid future confrontations they will have to deal with land and treaty claims effectively and fairly."

While Linden exonerates former Ontario premier Mike Harris of allegations he interfered in police operations, he finds Harris did push for a "speedy conclusion" to the conflict.

"The premier could have urged patience rather than speed. These decisions effectively foreclosed the possibility of initiating a constructive dialogue with occupiers or others on ways to end the occupation peacefully."

Linden also concluded Harris made racist comments, stating he wanted the "f------ Indians out of the park" during a meeting with senior officials.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=de4d11c6-e601-4778-a996-f0e9e09e4767

Community Organizations Call on Canadian Government to Pass Motion for a Moratorium on Deportations for Non-Status peoples

Media Advisory  May 31, 2007

Press Conference: Tuesday, June 5, 2007, 10:00 am

Access Alliance Multicultural Community Health Centre -
340 College St, Suite 500

Speakers:     

- Victor Wong, Chinese Canadian National Council
- Pedro Barata, Portuguese-Canadian National Congress
- Vilma Filici, Hispanic National Congress
- Loly Ricco, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
- Roger Langen, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation
- Iliam Burbano, Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3393
- Angelica and Abraham Larios ¨C Gallegos (Mexican Family
facing deportation)
- Sima Zerehi, No One is Illegal and the Don't Ask Don' Tell
Campaign

At a press conference being held at Access Alliance Multicultural
Community Health Centre on Tuesday June 5, community
workers, trade unionists, agency providers and supporters will
urge the House of Commons to pass a motion introduced by the
Standing Committee on Immigration to place an immediate
moratorium on deportations of all non-status peoples and their
families.  This moratorium is intended to be in effect while a
regularization program is put in place to address the
crisis of the over 500,000 people living in Canada without status.

In response to the mass mobilizations in 2006, demanding an end
to the unjust deportations of non-status communities particularly
the Hispanic and Portuguese communities, as well as an end to
immigration raids in Toronto schools, the Standing Committee on
Immigration which includes MP's from the Conservative, Liberal,
NDP and the Bloc Quebecois parties have drafted a motion calling for
a moratorium on deportations until a national regularization program
is implemented in Canada.

On May 11, 2007 the motion was debated at the House of Commons,
and on June 6, 2007 the debate for this motion will continue resulting
in a vote.

Regularization programs for non-status communities have been part
of Canada's history.  The first regularization or amnesty program was
introduced by a Conservative MP Douglas Jung almost 50 years ago.
Many such programs have followed including the Administrative
Review Program in 1986 and the Backlog Clearance Program of 1989,
two examples which collectively granted amnesty to approximately
160,000 individuals. These programs were created and implemented
under Brian Mulroney's Conservative Government. Most recently,
the Deferred Removal Orders Class (DROC) program of 1994-1998
regularized over 4,000 people.  It has been almost ten years since
the last regularization program has been implemented and community
workers, trade unionists, agency providers and supporters strongly
urge the Canadian government to pass this motion in order to offer a
humanitarian resolution to the crisis of the undocumented people and
their families living in daily fear of detention and deportation.

The press conference will allow a multiplicity of community leaders,
representatives and advocates to add their voices to the parliamentary
debates on this crucial motion and to highlight the significance of a
favourable vote for all Canadians.

-30-

Media Coordinator: Sima Zerehi 416.893.4053, sima@shahrvand.com