Posted on 04/07/2006 7:41:57 PM PDT by SandRat
NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 7, 2006 – The defense team in the case of a Canadian teen accused of terrorism backed down today on a motion that caused a near-boycott of proceedings April 5.
The defense withdrew its motion to have Omar Khadr, 19, moved from a maximum-security facility back to his usual medium-security facility. Khadr was moved to the maximum-security facility March 30, according to Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, his detailed defense counsel.
In a heated commission session April 5, Vokey asserted that the move put strain on the attorney-client relationship and made it difficult for the defense to prepare their case. At the time, he put in an oral motion to have Khadr moved back and said that he didn't feel comfortable proceeding with the hearing until this issue was dealt with, because it was Khadr's main priority.
Today, however, Vokey said that after discussing the move with government officials, he realized that it was not done out of punishment and that the conditions of Khadr's confinement are not interfering with their case preparation.
"We are satisfied with the accommodations now," Vokey said at a news conference after proceedings ended. "We are going to continue to closely monitor how Omar's being treated."
In a statement issued yesterday, Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a Joint Task Force Guantanamo spokesman, said that detainees charged by the Office of Military Commissions are transferred to maximum-security facilities for their own protection.
"Detainee security and protection is of utmost concern," Durand stated. "Moving detainees to a maximum-security facility ensures the physical security of the detainee, which cannot be done in a communal-living environment."
Regardless of detention location, detainees are still able to meet with their lawyers in private rooms that respect attorney-client privilege, Durand said. These detainees remain in a maximum-security setting during the commissions process, and where they will reside after the process depends on the outcome of the commissions, he said.
Khadr is charged with attempted murder based on the allegation that he emplaced improvised explosive devices on routes frequented by U.S. military convoys. He also is charged in connection with a grenade attack that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and two Afghan military members in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002.
More form Lovely Club GITMO!
After this Kid has been with these goat violators for a while I’ll bet he will be crying to get back to maximum security.
But who knows maybe he won’t.
This Marine defense counsel is doing his job a little too enthusiastically to my thinking. He must be planning to de a Democrat politician when he leaves the service. Only they go to the mat for the terrorists.
You do realize it was the "heavy" saying that, for without the lawyers, he could do whatever he wanted. Lawyers are like guns, it's how they are used, and by whom. You don't really like the "other guy's" but when you need one, you like yours just fine.
"Maha Elsamnah may have taken her then-14-year-old son Omar from Canada to Pakistan in 2001 and enrolled him for Al-Qaeda training but today she returned with another teenage son, Abdul Karim, from Pakistan to Canada."
"To mark the occasion of their return, the Globe and Mail quotes Elsamnah insisting just a month ago that Al-Qaeda-sponsored training camps were the best place for her children. "Would you like me to raise my child in Canada to be, by the time he's 12 or 13 years old, to be on drugs or having some homosexual relationship? Is it better?"
but when you need one, you like yours just fine.
No EG, I don't. and I know willie quite well. :)
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