Omar Khadr Update: Evidence of Innocence

Guantanamo's "child terrorist" may have a strong legal defense, according to recent reports: the U.S. soldier Omar Khadr is accused of killing may have been killed not by Omar Khadr, but by friendly fire. Imagine, after Khadr was tortured and imprisoned at the infamous and cruel Guantanamo prison for alleged terrorists as an "enemy combatant", it may turn out that he was innocent completely of the alleged crime. Bear in mind, he was forcibly detained at age 15 to allegedly protect Americans from "terror".

Lt. Cmdr William Kuebler told CTV Newsnet that during the discovery process
of Khadr's legal proceedings, the U.S. government released interviews from
American soldiers who said they were lobbing grenades into the compound where
army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer was killed in July 2002. ...

"As the process unfolds, we are learning the government's case against
Khadr gets weaker and weaker," Kuebler said. "It departs from the mythical
account that was originally sold to the Canadian government and public that Omar
Khadr must have been guilty of throwing a hand grenade because he was found
alive in the compound . . . (as) today we learned that U.S. soldiers were
throwing hand grenades into that compound."
"Given the fact there were no
eyewitnesses to Khadr throwing a hand grenade (friendly-fire) is yet another
possibility."

Of course, the government will do everything in its power to railroad Khadr into a conviction, but we hope an international outcry, and perhaps a domestic outcry as well, could make those whose hands are bloody in this quagmire think twice and give this defendant the same rights accorded to other human beings: the presumption of innocence.

Or are all principles to be trashed in the interest of fear?