Video shows interrogation of Canadian at Guantánamo Bay

By Ian Austen
Published: July 15, 2008

OTTAWA: Video recordings made public Tuesday show interrogations of the only Canadian held at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, providing a rare glimpse inside the compound.

The mood of Omar Khadr, just 16 years old at the time, swings from calm and indifference to rage and grief in the recordings as he pleads with a Canadian intelligence agent for help and, at one point, shows him a wound that was still not healed months after his capture in Afghanistan.

The poor-quality recordings, which were made by the U.S. military, were given to Khadr's Canadian lawyers by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service under a court order. They show Khadr, who is accused of killing a U.S. solider in Afghanistan during a battle in July 2002, being questioned by an unidentified member of the Canadian spy agency.

Although about seven hours of recordings were released, a selection about 10 minutes long was all that the lawyers released Tuesday.

It appears from the recordings and written documents released last week that Khadr, who says he was abused by U.S. interrogators both at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan, initially believed that the Canadian agent had come to help him.
Multimedia

But Khadr eventually seems to realize that he is only there to extract information.

Much of the material released simply shows Khadr, who is wearing an orange uniform, sobbing and repeated saying, in a moan, "Help me, help me."

While Khadr wants to return to Canada, the agent suggests that the situation is so good in Cuba he might want to stay there himself. "The weather's nice," the interrogator, whose face was electronically obscured, said. "No snow."

Khadr, who had been shot and was near death at the time of his capture, repeatedly complains about his medical treatment and his physical condition. At one point he lifts his shirt to show the agent wounds on his back and stomach that still had not healed.

The agent, however, is unmoved. "I'm not a doctor, but I think you're getting good medical care," he responded.

Later, a sobbing Khadr said: "You don't care about me."

Slats, apparently from a ventilation grill, obscure most of the images. Documents released last week under the same court order suggest that the sound on much of the other video is inaudible.

Amnesty International and several Canadian groups have been pressuring the Canadian government to ask the United States to return Khadr to Canada. Last week, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper again rejected those calls.

Nathan Whitling, one of Khadr's Canadian lawyers, said that he hoped the airing of the videos, which were prominently featured on the morning news programs of Canadian television networks, would change the government's mind.

"The only way to get him released is through a political process," Whitling said from his office in Edmonton, Alberta. "So we are pleading in the court of public opinion."