A former Canadian diplomat who was present at the interrogation of a then-teenage detainee at Guantanamo Bay said he feels demonized for his fact-finding visits after footage of the interview session was released earlier this week.
Jim Gould is one of the few Canadians who have seen Omar Khadr, now 21, since his capture by US forces after a four-hour firefight in Afghanistan six years ago. He said the Department of Foreign Affairs never endorsed abuse of Omar Khadr.
“We certainly never would have asked them to do anything to him,’’ Gould said. “That’s appalling. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought that was the case.”
Khadr’s lawyers released video footage on Tuesday of Khadr sobbing for his mother and pleading for Canada’s help while being interrogated by Canadian officials in 2003. At one point he pleads for medical help for chest and back wounds he says have not healed six months after his capture.
He tells his interrogators about torture and abuse he says he faced at the hands of US officials.
Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed a US medic, and is to be tried before a US military commission in October.
Gould visited Khadr twice at Guantanamo Bay — once in February of 2003 and again in April 2004. It was the only way to get first-hand information about the teenager’s mental and physical condition and had no intelligence purpose, he said.
Gould can be seen in the video at one point adjusting the air conditioner in Khadr’s cell.
“This is now being described as torture because we were changing the temperatures — making it freezing cold or burning hot,” he said. “Well, we were uncomfortable or the kid was uncomfortable. That was what that was.”
He said Khadr never showed any obvious signs of mistreatment, so it was reasonable to assume the US guards were treating the captive well.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS