Soldier In ‘Shock’ Over Leaked Khadr Report
Ex-U.S. Green Beret believed 15-year-old Canadian was only survivor of attack, contrary to new claim
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — A U.S. Special Forces soldier injured in the battle where Omar Khadr was captured says he was shocked to learn the Canadian teenager wasn’t the only person alive in an Afghan compound when a grenade fatally wounded another soldier.
Layne Morris, a former U.S. Green Beret who was blinded in one eye during the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan and forced to retire from the army, said he always maintained Khadr was the sole survivor in the compound.
“That was a total shock to me. Everyone had told me from the get-go that there was only one guy in there,” Morris said in a telephone interview from his Utah home yesterday.
A document inadvertently released to reporters here Monday disclosed that after the grenade was thrown, a U.S. operative killed another suspect and then shot Khadr twice in the back. The revelation casts doubt on the Pentagon’s assertion that Khadr threw the grenade that fatally wounded Delta Force soldier and medic Christopher Speer.
Khadr, now 21, is charged with “murder in violation of the laws of war” for Speer’s death in addition to attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material support to terrorism.
Morris had been airlifted from the battle scene before Speer was injured, but said other soldiers involved in the firefight had told him Khadr was the only one who could have tossed the grenade.
The five-page classified document, however, states that an unidentified operative reportedly saw someone with an AK-47 beside him, moving and “moaning” after the grenade was thrown. He shot him in the head, killing him. “When the dust rose, he saw a second man sitting up facing away from him leaning against the brush. This man, later identified as Khadr, was moving … (the operative) fired two rounds, both of which struck Khadr in the back.”
It appears no one witnessed Khadr throwing the grenade, but that the operative concluded Khadr was responsible based on his position and the trajectory of the grenade.
Khadr was 15 during the firefight and has been held in U.S. custody for almost six years. This is the Pentagon’s third attempt to try Khadr after charges were twice dismissed - first by the U.S. Supreme Court, which deemed the process illegal, and then by a military judge, who ruled he didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case.
Up until this week it had been the military commission process itself that has been on trial - with Khadr’s lawyers and international civil rights groups challenging the legality of the commissions at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But with this first official account of the firefight, and as Khadr’s trial nears, the prosecution’s evidence is also being called into question.
Canada’s opposition parties pressed Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week to intervene on Khadr’s behalf, insisting the Toronto man be rehabilitated rather than prosecuted. But Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier maintained the government’s hands-off approach to the Khadr case yesterday, telling reporters in Ottawa that U.S. officials have assured Canada Khadr is “well treated over there.”
Khadr’s trial is scheduled to start in May although it’s likely his defence lawyers will ask for an extension. In addition to having to prove Khadr was responsible for Speer’s death, the prosecution must show Khadr provided support for Al Qaeda and conspired with its members.
Khadr is also being held accountable for the deaths of two Afghan soldiers, according to his charge sheet. Although he’s not charged with their murders, it’s alleged he conspired with others to kill them. Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor, U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said they will prove Khadr “shared the criminal intent of those who did the shooting.”
Layne Morris said despite the new information released this week he isn’t concerned about the coming trial or conflicting reports of what happened on July 27, 2002. He said he believes there is evidence to show it was Khadr’s job to throw the grenades during the battle, while the other men in the house used their AK-47s. “Omar was the grenade man,” he said.
© 2008 The Toronto Star
Franz Kafka would not be out-of-place in Guantanamo Bay.
This is great comic material. Theatre of the Absurd, at the very least. The United States has managed to make itself not only the most hated nation on earth, but also the biggest laughingstock - we’re in the asylum and everybody else is outside pointing in at the idiots and laughing, not so much because it’s funny, but that they’re embarrassed by us and they can’t figure out how to fix it and make us stop behaving like bloodlust fools and idiots.
Amazing - we can’t even keep our lies straight!!!
WTF is “murder in violation of the laws of war”? No one is allowed to throw handgranades anymore?
Who is on trial for shooting and killing the wounded Afghan or for shooting Omar Khadr in the back?
Yeah… so let me get this straight… It is against international law to kill an American soldier who is invading another country… but it’s perfectly legal for an American soldier to kill people in the country that’s being invaded… hmmm… now there’s some crazy logic. Americans are so damn arrogant…
I guess American Lives are worth more than any others… except of course the Israelis. Good ol’ Bibi has said that the life of a Jew is worth infinitely more than the live of a non-jew.
Also, I am GREATLY disappointed with Stephen Harper for not standing up for this Canadian Citizen. I guess he’s got his head so far up Bush’s ass that he can’t see what’s going on around him. Traitor!
Omar should go home because he was a child soldier.
Everyone else at gitmo, and anywhere else in the gulag should also be liberated. In the unlikely event that they were apprehended, like little Omar, for fighting an invading army, for having the unconscionable impudence to fight back when americans are shooting at them and bombing them, they were behaving like any normal person has been since war was first invented.
In our cowardly new world though, you can’t do that.When the most powerful arsenal on the planet opens fire, you are supposed to die. If you try fighting back, and survive to be captured, you are pronounced an “enemy combatant”. when bush made up that category, it was to avoid the troublesome Geneva conventions about the rights of prisoners of war. last count i heard we had locked up 30,000 of these people. it may also be why none of them has ever been charged or tried or seen a lawyer.
What has happened to America? Who are we? Americans are so poorly informed. The United States of America has been attacked viciously from inside our government for decades. The only country that is destroying America is America.
Anyone that profits from war is in on it. Any solider that is serving in Iraq is filled with depleted uranium, a death sentence. We are all being lied to and most do not care.
Close gitmo. Send Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell and the rest of them to prison NOW. There is no war on terrorism. It is a sham. Americans are being manipulated by fear, a fear that has been set in place years ago. Propaganda is a powerful weapon. How ignorant are the citizens of this country? People will not question 9/11, they will not question their leaders, they will not question the destruction of our economy, they will not question the genocide in Iraq, they will not questions the murder of over one million Iraqis. The American invasion of Iraq was criminal.
The United States of America is being destroyed from within our borders and the American people are powerless unless they wake up and do something now. Be your own media. Share information with all that you can. Americans must wake up. Do not expect the ‘08 election to bring on change. It is up to the citizens to correct these wrongs.
It is time we closed Gitmo.
>>>>>Americans are so damn arrogant…
This case has nothing to do with me dipshit. W stole two elections. The war was his wet dream. The entire globe is paying for it, but blame greed and the lust for power which is a wholly human trait, since the general populace of America didn’t authorize any war crimes. I may be guilty by association, but I sure as hell never voted for nor approved of anything my gov’t has done abroad.
el mysterioso: if you are still following this…………
as a fellow canadian, i am more than “disappointed”
that harper doesn’t speak out for Khadr; i’m damn furious, and i’m going to tell him so. as a jew, i’m also damn mad at you for your oh so typical among anti-israeli peoples’ equation of israelis with jews. get it straight! 60% of jews do not live in israel. many of us are totally opposed to its policies and a considerable number even question its right to exist under the circumstances in which it came to be what it is. yes, harper should get his head out of bush’s ass, and you should get yours out of your own. (and who the hell is this “Bibi” anyway? never heard of her/him/it.)