Dear Colleague:
On Monday, January 12, 2009, at a press briefing at the National Press Club, a letter will be released to President-Elect Obama asking him to place a temporary halt on the trial of then 15 year old Omar Khadr, who has been detained in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo since 2002. Absent prompt intervention, one of the first acts of the new administration will be to preside over the first trial ever of a child soldier for war crimes in United States history.
The defense team is only asking the administration to freeze the Military Commission tribunal and take a fresh look at the case. In addition to a lot of evidence that points to the child's innocence, his detention and subsequent torture flies in the face of domestic and international laws and numerous treaties and protocols, and has received widespread condemnation from around the world.
We need as many organizations and individuals to sign-on to the attached letter by close of business tomorrow, January 8th. Please contact Ji Seon Song at jsong@njdc.info
Time is of the essence. Please let your voice be heard.
Thank you.
National Juvenile Defender Center
Washington, D.C.
For President –Elect Barack Obama To find the following letter in full Go
here
This is not a quick email letter but one you will need to download & FAX or send by overnight mail for Obama's attention.
Here is are excerpts:
Re: Omar A. Khadr, Bagram & Guantanamo Detainee since age 15
Dear President-Elect Obama:
The undersigned legal scholars, psychiatric and other medical experts, and children’s and human rights activists write to bring to your immediate attention the case of Omar A. Khadr, one of two juvenile detainees facing charges in Guantanamo Bay. Omar has been detained there for more than six years, since 2002. Omar is currently scheduled to be tried under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 on January 26, 2009 – just six days after your inauguration as President. Accordingly, absent prompt intervention, one of the first acts of your administration will be to preside over the first trial of a child soldier for war crimes in U.S.
history.
Omar has been in U.S. custody since 2002 when he was just 15 years old, initially in Afghanistan and then at Guantanamo. Throughout his detention, he has been housed with adult detainees despite his youth. Whether your administration eventually closes the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or not, military proceedings under the widely-condemned MCA are ongoing. As things now stand, the next two cases to be tried involve the prosecution of detainees who were juveniles (i.e., child soldiers unlawfully used by our enemies) when taken into U.S. custody.
We believe that you should be made aware of three critical issues (condensed)
...as noted above, Omar is scheduled to go to trial January 26, 2009, only six days after you take office;
As a former child soldier protected by the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (“Child Soldier Protocol”), Omar Khadr’s prosecution has drawn widespread condemnation from, among others, the U.N. Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF, the Government of France, the former chief prosecutor for the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, and Canadian and European parliamentarians.
The other child soldier case is United States v. Jawad. The case is currently pending interlocutory appeal, but is expected to immediately proceed to trial in February or early March after the interlocutory appeal is resolved. This case is likewise in tatters. The Military Judge in Jawad recently ruled that the government’s theory of liability for the offense of attempted murder in violation of the law of war is not a legally valid theory. He also ruled that statements given by Jawad to Afghani interrogators were the product of torture, and has urged prosecutors to drop the case absent additional evidence to indicate that Jawad’s alleged conduct actually violated the “law of war.” And the prosecutor in Jawad’s case recently resigned on the ground that it would be unethical for him to continue his participation in light of concerns over the concealment of exculpatory evidence.
...although Omar has been charged with killing an American soldier during a four-
hour ground and aerial firefight in Afghanistan, among other things, evidence disclosed to his lawyers, including documents inadvertently disclosed to the public, increasingly points to Omar’s innocence. In other words, not only will your Administration try a child soldier for the first time in our history, your administration will also be at serious risk of trying a child soldier who is innocent of the most serious charge against him.
Brief Case Summary – Omar A. Khadr
Omar A. Khadr is a 22-year old Canadian Citizen detained by the United States since the age of 15. Omar was shot in the back by U.S. troops at the conclusion of a firefight near Khost, Afghanistan. U.S. soldiers found him buried underneath the rubble of a compound that had been bombed extensively during aerial assaults. Having been given away by his father to be used as a child soldier by a group of Islamic militants in Afghanistan, Omar now faces trial on January 26,2009 by military commission for a number of alleged “war crimes,” including a charge of “murder” based on the allegation that Omar threw a hand grenade that killed a U.S. soldier who participated in the firefight.
Despite his age and the nature of his injuries, Omar was detained as an adult at Bagram Airbase and subjected to brutal interrogation methods by a U.S. intelligence interrogator... These interrogation methods included chaining Omar’s wrists to the ceiling and cell walls for long periods,shackling him in fixed stress positions, and the use of hoods, growling dogs and sleep deprivation, among others. See Tim Golden, In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths, NY TIMES (May 20,2005) (describing the same methods used on other detainees in Bagram during the same period Omar was held
there). Documents disclosed by the Canadian government show that Omar was subjected to sleep deprivation as part of the “frequent flyer program” at Guantanamo, as well as extended periods of isolation to ensure his “cooperation” with interrogators. All this took place while Omar was a juvenile, in contravention of recommended guidelines for the detention and interrogation of juvenile detainees authored by military psychologists and psychiatrists...Action is needed now.
Respectfully,
Signed (you and/or your organization)
Again, to find this letter (Obama Letter)in full GO
here
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