02/04/15 – Dennis Edney – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Live weekdays, noon to two, eastern time, on the Liberty Radio Network.
Our first guest today is Dennis Edney.
He is a lawyer, a Canadian lawyer, representing Omar Khadr, former Guantanamo inmate Omar Khadr.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Dennis?
I'm fine, thank you.
Thank you very much for joining us on the show today.
Very important subject here.
The website is freeomar.ca, freeomar.ca, and we have two 10-minute segments with a break in the middle here, so should be plenty of time.
If you could, please, sir, can you tell us, just first of all, who is this kid?
How is it that he ended up in the custody of the American terror warriors?
Well, he was the only child in Guantanamo Bay, and he ended up there because his father had come to Pakistan and then had left Canada to go to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to work as an engineer.
And when Afghanistan was invaded by the United States, the country, of course, was in turmoil, and many people sought safety in the mountain regions of Pakistan, including the Khadr family.
However, Omar Khadr's father abandoned him and left him in the hands of a small group of Taliban warriors promising to return and pick him up and never did.
And Omar was 15 at the time.
Fifteen years old.
And this is right at the beginning of the war in 2001.
So then what happened?
Well, the compound he was in was attacked by the U.S. forces.
It was bombed and reduced to rubble.
Omar was the sole survivor.
And when the dust settled, a Delta Force soldier gone by the pseudonym OC1 stated he saw Omar crouched on his knees facing a black wall screaming from the bombing instrumental that had just permanently blinded him in one eye and had caused all kinds of damage to him.
And then the officer shot Omar twice in the back.
Omar was not expected to live.
He regained consciousness three days later at the U.S. naval base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
And from that moment, Scott, Omar realized that his life had changed forever.
He suffered extensive horrors of abuse and torture in Bagram.
And whatever happened to him in Bagram continued in Guantanamo.
All right.
Well, I guess let's take it chronologically here just for ease's sake.
Sure.
Back to the battle, I guess there's a documentary about this, You Don't Like the Truth, which people can find at scotthorton.org slash documentaries.
I have it embedded in there for you.
You Don't Like the Truth, the story of Omar Khadr.
And I can't remember if it's from that or what I've read in other times.
But I seem to remember that the shooting where he was shot in the back, as you described, that that was early or kind of maybe midway through the firefight and that he was found, basically, as you say, it was assumed that he would die.
He had been found in a pile of rubble from the battle.
And this seems like it would contradict the charges against him, which actually sound a lot more like a scene from an old episode of The A-Team or something than something that could have actually fit with the circumstances of what we really know happened at that firefight.
So in a sense, we're skipping ahead to the charges, but the charges are based on what they claim he did there.
And I just wonder whether there, you know, I know you're his lawyer, but can you tell us that story?
Can you concede any part of what they accuse him of doing there?
They accused him of throwing a hand grenade that killed a Delta Force soldier called Christopher Speer.
And Christopher Speer's team leader, for lack of a better description, who went by the pseudonym OC1 gave evidence at the so-called Guantanamo trial in the military commissions.
And he didn't see Omar do anything.
And what he did talk about was that he saw Omar was not part of the battle and was screaming, as you say.
And that when he had shot Omar and left his alleyway, there were other soldiers, not regular soldiers, who were following behind him, and hand grenades were being thrown all over the bloody place.
And he never ever, he's the only eyewitness to Omar Khadr, and he can't point out that Omar Khadr threw a hand grenade.
In fact, what he did say was that after leaving Omar, having shot him twice in the back, the hand grenade came soaring over him.
And he felt that, and he believed there was another person alive at that time.
But if you consider the reality of it all, having shot someone twice in the back and leaving them for dead, it's highly likely, if not impossible, that that young boy was able to get up and throw a hand grenade, and certainly in the distance that would have been required.
And so it was a fabrication.
So who said he threw it?
Pardon?
It sounds like you're saying the state's witness is debunking their case against him, but who claimed that he actually threw the grenade?
Ah, well, that's the best part.
I don't know if I should use that phrase, the best part.
From the moment Omar gained consciousness, he was interrogated by a military officer called Sergeant Kloss.
And Sergeant Kloss, from the moment Omar gained consciousness, tortured him to acknowledge that he had thrown a hand grenade that killed Christopher Speer.
Now, under torture, Omar, of course, admitted to that, as one would admit to anything.
And Kloss is a particularly interesting guy because he was convicted for having killed two detainees in Bagram using the torture techniques he used on Omar and crippling two others.
And Kloss was then charged and was deemed that he was charged and given a six-month sentence for assaulting these people that he had killed.
And Kloss gave evidence that he was harsher on this 15-year-old boy than he was on with adults.
And so it was under torture by this horrible man who we count, he interrogated Omar 32 times in Bagram Hospital, including hanging him from the door, being able to stand on his toes, all kinds of humiliating treatment.
In fact, a medical, a former U.S. Army medic gave evidence that he found Omar chained to the doorframe of a five-foot square wire cage with his arms suspended above his shoulders, hooded and weeping.
And so that is the nature of the evidence that was provided about Omar Khadr.
That's all they had on him was his self-incrimination under torture.
That's why the Fifth Amendment is the Fifth Amendment here in the United States, for just those kinds of things.
But anyway, I think maybe it's just trivia at this point, because if he did throw the grenade like they claim from his tortured testimony, then I wonder, Dennis, whether you've ever heard of any international law that would make that a war crime for a civilian to defend himself from an invading military force by throwing a grenade at them.
What the hell is a war crime about that?
I mean, obviously what they did to him from that moment on is all war crimes, but we'll get back to that in a second.
Well, I remember they came to him.
Oh, no, and now the music's playing.
You know what?
I'm sorry.
I'm terrible at this.
Hard break.
We've got to take a break.
We'll be right back, and I'll let you get to that about the charges against him, the allegation of the thing that he didn't do or whether that would be a war crime anyway, and then we'll get back to efforts to free him and the rest.
It's Dennis Edney.
He's the lawyer for Omar Khadr, innocent victim of the American empire.
We'll be right back.
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Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show, here.
I'm talking with Dennis Edney.
He's a lawyer representing Omar Khadr, Canadian citizen.
At 15 years old, his father abandoned him with some Taliban fighters.
They were attacked by the Delta Force.
A Delta Force guy died, and then they tortured this 15-year-old boy into confessing to a ridiculous story that couldn't possibly be true about him throwing a grenade and killing this guy that their own Delta Force witnesses on scene debunk even the possibility that this could have even happened.
I'm sorry, Dennis.
At the hard break there, I was asking whether there's any conceivable circumstance where that would be a war crime, even if it was true.
Of course.
Had Omar been guilty of throwing a hand grenade on a battlefield at the age of 15, he was entitled to many international instruments or treaties that the United States and Canada have been our signatories to.
One is, of course, the signatory of being a child soldier, but he was never treated as a child soldier, even though he was 15 at the time.
Even though David Crane, who was the U.S. Special Prosecutor on the Sierra Leone child soldier trials that were funded both by Canada and the United States and the millions of dollars, agreed that he was a child soldier, Canada and the United States were firm on the fact that they would not allow him to be thought of as a child soldier.
We also have other instruments.
When you say instruments, you mean protections.
In other words, he's banned from being prosecuted for a war crime in a situation like that.
Yes, we give an international law.
We have a different standard for children as opposed to adults.
So we have these various treaties that allow protection to our children.
One is, in particular countries where we have child soldiers put in these positions by authority figures, we give them protection.
We recognize that these are vulnerable individuals who, if fully informed and dispassionate, would not be in those battlefields.
So Canada and also the United States, in dealing with the child soldiers in Sierra Leone, spent millions to rehabilitate child soldiers, and yet Omar Khadr was not recognized as a child soldier.
In fact, no international treaty was allowed to be provided to Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay, just as no Canadian consular official under the Consular Relations Act was allowed to come and visit Omar in Guantanamo Bay and provide assistance.
And so Guantanamo Bay is well described as a place beyond the rule of law.
Before we get to Guantanamo, I wanted to get back to Bagram.
In the documentary, You Don't Like the Truth, there's an interview with a guy, a gigantic prison guard-looking guy with monster tattooed across his chest, admitting that he was the meanest torturer there.
But during his shift, no one was allowed to mess with this kid, because he's just a kid, so leave him alone.
But then, I believe, he also goes on to say, but hey, that was only when I was on duty.
When I wasn't on duty, there was a lot more going on, and we're not talking about, I guess, the top-secret, highest-level rendition program.
We're talking about basically just regular prison guards and lower-level enlistees in the Army, military police and such, being told, go ahead and do whatever you want to these guys with no limit.
And so it's kind of maybe hard in 2015 for people to think about the climate as it was back then and what was being taken out on the prisoners in Bagram in 2001 and 2002.
But could you, at the risk of grossing everyone out, could you please elaborate on what exactly they did to Omar Khadr?
Well, I think you're talking about Damian Cassetti, first of all.
And Damian Cassetti has reached out for forgiveness from Omar Khadr.
Damian Cassetti will tell you that he was 20 years of age when he was on this torture team, supervised by Sergeant Claus.
And he also says publicly that he said, we did terrible things to that young man.
And so you have to understand that despite the fact that what we're talking about is a hospital, and despite the fact he was in the hospital, and despite the fact that this 15-year-old had just regained consciousness and was suffering from extensive shrapnel wounds all over his body, that the bones in his left shoulder and chest were shattered from bullet wounds, or that he was now partially blind, he would be taken into an interrogation room with his hands and feet shackled to a stretcher and unable to resist the horrors that was going to be perpetrated on him by these torture individuals, this team.
And when the interrogators didn't like the answers they were given about Omar, they would put this man who had just come off the battlefield, regained consciousness three days later with all the sufferings I've just pointed out to you, and they would force him into stress positions, which is unnatural positions that would cause agonizing pain to this young boy.
He would just end up screaming and sobbing.
And when he reached that stage, while he's lying on a stretcher, it was then that his captors would then shine a bright pencil light directly into his damaged eyes, causing even more pain and even more damage.
And when I had referred that to, confronted Damien about that, that's when he said, you know, we did terrible things to that boy.
And then as Omar became more mobile in the hospital, he would then be taken into the interrogation room with a black hood placed over his head, with the sole purpose of disorienting him.
And what Omar describes, that he had this suffocating feeling as the hood was trapped so tightly around his neck, nearly choking him, and so he panicked, this young boy, and he screamed to his interrogators that he couldn't breathe.
And what would they do?
They just laughed at him as they brought in barking dogs, smiling into his face while he's covered with this hood.
But, you know, probably more significant for me is the fact that he, and it was a constant punishment, it was a constant technique, that he would be made, this young boy, this young innocent boy, because I'm a father, that he would be made to stand on his toes in a crucifixion position for hours at a time, with his arms outstretched to the upper parts of a doorjamb and hung by his wrist.
And what happens is that eventually your weight, supporting your weight on your toes becomes an unbearable strain, and so your ankles and your feet will swell to at least twice their size, and you're in agonizing pain.
And it was in those positions that Omar at times would then just urinate on himself.
And they would then untie him, and they would use his head as a mop to clear up the urine on the floor.
And while doing that, he would be threatened with rape and other humiliating acts which I don't care to describe to you listeners.
And there is support for that because in Guantanamo, at the so-called trial, a former U.S. Army medic gave evidence that he once found Omar chained to the doorframe of a five-foot square wire cage, with his arms suspended, hooded, and weeping.
So imagine that frightening picture of a 15-year-old boy.
Imagine your own child, your own brother and sister being treated that way.
And, you know, I interviewed a British Guantanamo detainee, a former British Guantanamo detainee in London, and he said, you know, we could hear Omar's cries and moans day and night until we separated from him.
And we all felt bad for him.
He was just so young.
And here's another story for you listeners.
I recall Omar telling me, because I drafted an affidavit for the Supreme Court of Canada, and I recall him telling me about the story of a U.S. soldier who would come to his bedside regularly, would drop his pants and stick his naked bum in Omar's face and then fart.
And others around the bed would simply laugh at this antic.
And so it's sickening, it's horrible, and what does it say about humanity?
All right, now I'm sorry, we have a very short time left.
We've got to move on to the bogus plea deal he was forced to accept, and then, you know, obviously the result is he was transferred to Canada, where now he's in, I believe, a regular prison, and there's a move to get him finally released.
So in very little time, can you please address the bogus plea and the efforts to get him released?
Well, we don't have enough time.
In Guantanamo, the story, the quality of representation that Omar received in Guantanamo was disgraceful.
There were some great military lawyers who represented other detainees.
Omar was not represented well.
He had very inexperienced military lawyers, and it was very difficult for us civilian lawyers to be allowed to participate.
No witnesses were called on his behalf or allowed in for his trial.
I had everybody from the UN to David Crane from the Sierra Leone trials and so on and so forth, whom I was told would come as witnesses, but not allowed.
And no self-defense was allowed, and no torture stories or evidence was allowed to be accepted by the court.
And so at some point, we received an offer, an offer that if he pled guilty to all these charges and this statement of fact, that he could get out of Guantanamo, he'd get a sentence of eight years with only one year to remain in Guantanamo and the seven years back in Canada.
And so Omar didn't want that deal.
He wouldn't take that deal.
And against all my training, I forced him, because I told him, if you don't sign this deal, you'll spend your life in this horrible place.
And so he did so.
And then he was returned to Canada.
But the Canadian government took an extra year before it allowed him to come home, contrary to the agreement.
And thirdly, the US Pentagon, in providing status about Omar Khadr, told the Canadian government in writing, which I provided to them, that Omar was a compliant minimum security prisoner, and a former judge advocate from Guantanamo also wrote a letter saying he's just a nice kid.
But the Canadian government refused to listen to that.
They classified him as a maximum security prisoner, a danger to Canada, and a danger to any prisoner in any Canadian prison.
And so he ended up in a maximum security prison outside Ottawa, spent the first seven and a half months in isolation.
And then on the day that he was released, he was put on a food line to assist, and somebody tried to stab him.
I then was able to have him moved to another maximum security prison where I live.
And what did we do on arrival?
We put him on this Muslim kid, we put him on a white supremacist unit, and the shit was kicked out of him all within five minutes.
And so welcome to Canada.
And so I have not lost a single case against this government in over ten years in fighting for Omar Khadr.
I was also successful along with others in the US Supreme Court.
But I'm also confronted with the limits of justice.
When you're facing governments who are intractable and determined to do what they wish to do.
And so Omar Khadr continues to remain in jail, and so I keep coming up with different ideas of trying to get him out.
I'm back in the Supreme Court in May, and I'm also for the third time in Canada on Omar Khadr.
But more importantly, I'm doing a bail hearing, which is quite unique.
And that bail hearing requires, if I'm successful, a plan, a reorientation plan into society.
And I have all kinds, and it's on the public record, all kinds of established public figures who are prepared to step up and assist Omar in his reintegration back into society.
Because they, like many of us, believe that what happened to Omar Khadr is a horror story.
And not just for them, but for any of our children.
Because whatever happened to Omar could happen to any of our children, any of us.
So we bequeathed a terrible legacy for their future.
Well listen, this is such an important thing, and he is so lucky that he's got a lawyer who knows what he's doing, and willing to work so hard on this.
So I want to encourage everybody, if you can, please go to freeomar.ca.
That's how to donate to this cause, correct, Dennis?
Yes, yes.
I just want to make sure I wasn't giving everybody the wrong URL all of a sudden there.
Freeomar.ca.
Listen, I've kept you over time, but thank you so much for giving us this time of yours this afternoon to talk with us about this absolutely horrible case.
No, thank you, and thank you listeners for being interested.
Thanks again.
Talk to you another time soon, I hope.
All right, y'all, that's Dennis Edney.
The website is freeomar.ca if you want to help this campaign.
He's taking it to the Canadian Supreme Court to try to get Omar Khadr, this innocent victim of the terror war, released from prison.
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