Canada to appeal federal court ruling regarding Guantanamo detainee

Canada to appeal court ruling over US detainee

TORONTO — The Canadian government said Monday it will appeal a federal court ruling that ordered it to remedy its failure to protect the rights of a Canadian detainee held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the government will challenge Justice Russel Zinn’s ruling last week that found the government had not done enough to safeguard the constitutional rights of Toronto-born terrorism suspect Omar Khadr. That ruling gave the government seven days to come up with a list of remedies.

“This case raises important issues concerning the (prosecution) prerogative over foreign affairs,” Nicholson said in a statement. “As the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in an earlier case involving Mr. Khadr, ‘it would not be appropriate for the court to give direction as to the diplomatic steps necessary to address the breaches of Mr. Khadr’s Charter rights.’”

Khadr was 15 when he was captured after allegedly killing an American soldier with a grenade in a 2002 battle in Afghanistan. He is now 23 and is awaiting trial. Authorities say his family has close links to al-Qaida.

He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Khadr is the youngest and last Western detainee held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Khadr appeared in a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday and called the military commission process a sham. He said he intends to boycott his trial in August, saying there was no chance he would receive a fair trial.

Khadr fired his U.S. civilians lawyers last week and sought to represent himself at the trial. He also tried to fire his court-appointed military lawyer Monday, but that request was denied by the presiding judge.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled earlier this year that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence from Khadr under “oppressive circumstances,” such as sleep deprivation, during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, and then shared that evidence with U.S. officials.

The ruling did not order the Canadian government to repatriate Khadr — a step his lawyers have been fighting for and one the government has rejected.

A month after the Supreme Court ruling, the government sent a diplomatic note to Washington asking that information Canadian officials obtained from Khadr during the interrogation at Guantanamo not be used in the prosecution against him.

Khadr’s lawyers said the government needed to do more and asked the federal court to review the government’s response. That resulted in last week’s decision by Zinn, which found Canada had not met the standard set in January by the Supreme Court of Canada, which called on the government to right the wrongs it had brought on Khadr.