Oct 31 2010

sham/e UPDATED

(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Michelle Shephard’s tweet:

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40 years. Wow. #Khadr looked straight ahead. Widow of soldier he was convicted of killing cheered out in court.

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#Guantanamo sentence 15 more than even Pentagon prosecutors asked for in #Khadr case.    

# The 40 year #Khadr sentence unexpected. Pentagon lawyers asked for 25. Prosecutor had said, “send a message.” I’d say they sure did that.

Ill try to come back later to add updates and more info.

Sick. Just sick. The widow cheered.

shephardm

#Guantanamo prosecutors, #Khadr lawyers on the way to media hangar for press conferences. #Military jurors have declined to be interviewed.

updates below

[UPDATE 6:52pm]

Michelle Shephard Toronto Star

n closing arguments, the military panel had been asked to think about a lot more than just the fate of the Toronto-born detainee.

“Make no mistake. The world is watching,” Pentagon Prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing told the uniformed panel Saturday morning. “Your sentence will send a message.”

Though more than 5,000 American service members have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Khadr is the only captive the U.S. has charged with murder in connection with one of those murders.

Dennis Edney makes a statement:

After the sentence came down, Khadr lawyer Dennis Edney slammed the entire process.

“Justice was not served today,” he said in a statement. “The fact that the trial of a child soldier, Omar Khadr, has ended with a guilty plea in exchange for his eventual release to Canada does not change the fact that fundamental principles of law and due process were long since abandoned in Omar’s case.”

He said Khadr was forced to sign a very misleading statement of facts to get the plea deal, one that was designed to make him look like the “worst of the worst.”

“We may choose to believe that through his plea Omar finally came clean . . . or that this was one final coerced confession from a victimized young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time because his father placed him there.”

and from Mayeda’s tweet:

Edney on #Khadr sentence: “We have over 1,200 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and we’ve made a 15 year old boy pay for that.”

More firsts for President Obama.

The Khadr sentence is a significant landmark for the Guantanamo war-crimes tribunal, created in 2002. He is the fifth person convicted at Guantanamo, but the first charged with murder in violation of the laws of war. Khadr is also the first convicted for crimes committed as a juvenile.

and also, crimes that weren’t crimes at the time he committed them. or something. by a child soldier who wasnt exactly a soldier so international laws dont apply to him. and who pled guilty to at least two crimes that he was never even charged with.

and so he gets a sentence now from this military tribunal jury that isnt really a real sentence because the political diplomatic plea deal ….

…

dizzy.

10 comments

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  1. Back into solitary confinement, i.e., back into torture, since isolation is a very specific kind of torture. What a massive clusterfuck! Submit Khadr to this charade, kill his sense of self-integrity via false confession, then shove him into solitary with the “belief” (and how can I not this put this word into quotes?) that he will be released to custody in Canada for another seven years…

    Omar Khadr is you or me. This is what the U.S. rulers have in store for anyone who they decide to make an example of.

    • Edger on November 1, 2010 at 00:34
    • #

    if we can ever get george bush or dick cheney or barack obama into a prisoners dock facing war crimes charges.

    This is a very sick society…

    • Edger on November 1, 2010 at 02:20
    • #

  4. Eventually there will be a Truth Commission, to document the crimes against humanity that have occurred under the Bush and Obama presidencies.

  5. Uncle Sam makes the rules kid, and don’t you forget it.

    And this goes for everybody, including you pot smokers in

    California and even the Prez of these old United States. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he ain’t playin games anymore.  

  7. Female Yemeni student framed in alleged terrorist incident.

     http://www.thenational.ae/news…

    “Finding her phone number on the parcel is not enough evidence of her involvement,” Mr Barman said. “We are afraid she might be a victim of the unruly war on terrorism.”

    Hundreds of Sana’a University students protested in front of the campus. “Am I terrorist if I have lost my ID card?” one poster read.

  8. in his comment on fb introduces his article with this remark:

    Here’s my epitaph on the Omar Khadr debacle, just published on Truthout, and written in a furious few hours yesterday evening after the military jury announced its 40-year sentence (commuted to 8 as part of Khadr’s convenient plea deal). Not a good reflection on either Republicans or Democrats before tomorrow’s mid-term elections. Vote as wisely as you can, my American friends!

    made me cry.

    His article: Omar Khadr Jury Hammers the Final Nail Into the Coffin of American Justice.

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