First video of Guantanamo Bay interrogation released
The 10 minutes of video — selected by Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyers from more than seven hours of footage recorded by a camera hidden in a vent — shows a 16-year-old Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, during the 2003 interrogation that took place over four days.
The video, created by US government agents and originally marked as secret, provides insight into the effects of prolonged interrogation and detention on the Guantanamo prisoner.
A Canadian Security Intelligence Services agent in the video grills Khadr about events leading up to his capture as an enemy combatant when he was 15. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. He was arrested after he was found in the rubble of a bombed-out compound, badly wounded and near death.
At one point in the interrogation, Khadr pulls off his orange prisoner shirt and shows the wounds he sustained in the firefight. He complains he can’t move his arms and says he had requested, but hadn’t received, proper medical attention.
The agent later accuses Khadr of using his injuries and emotional state to avoid the interrogation.
Khadr also tells his interrogator that he was tortured while at the US military detention centre at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was first detained after his arrest in 2002.
Later on in the tape, a distraught Khadr is seen rocking, his face in his hands. “Help me,” he sobs repeatedly in despair.
The video is believed to be the first footage shown of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in action during its 24-year history, offering an unprecedented glimpse into its interrogation strategies. The video was made by US authorities and turned over to Khadr’s defence team, according to a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr JD Gordon. The tapes are US property.
The video was made public under Canadian court orders, and released by Alberta-based lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney a week after intelligence reports made public last week showed Khadr was abused in detention at the US naval base-turned-prison.
A Department of Foreign Affairs report said Canadian official Jim Gould visited Khadr in 2004 and was told by the American military that the detainee was moved every three hours to deprive him of sleep and familiar cell mates.
Whitling and Edney released the video with hopes that public reaction to the footage will prompt Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to lobby for his repatriation.
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