In this video, Omar Khadr, a 15 year old Canadian detainee – the youngest at Guatanamo bay – speaks to a team of Canadian intelligence agents after being tortured by US officials before even arriving at the facility.
This just-barely teen boy was taken into custody by the US after a firefight in Afghanistan in September 2002. Khadr was severly wounded in this battle, tortured after being taken into custody, and a month later was sent to Guantanamo Bay. Shortly after he arrived, Canadian security agents spent four days interrogating him, which are documented here. In this clip,the psychologically perverse interrogation techniques used are exposed, as you follow Khadr's painful realization that the Canadian agents are not there to take him home but to manipulate him into making incriminating statements whether or not those statements are true.
In July 2008, the video of this interrogation was ordered to be made available in a Canadian supreme court ruling that stated: “ Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel, and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the US prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”
The transformation of this 7 minute video into a documentary titled “Four Days in Guantanamo” is increasing the level of awareness regarding the treatments of prisoners at this infamous detention center.
The directors explain that International conventions which protect the rights of children in wartime (especially child soldiers) should have applied to Omar, but the Canadian government sidestepped those laws.
In October 2010, Omar pleaded guilty to all the charges pressed by the US. It was a strategic plea bargain which enabled the young boy to serve eight years in jail, instead of 40. He is the first person ever convicted as a war criminal for acts committed as a juvenile. He served a total of 3619 days in Guantanamo.
Omar has returned to Canada after a decade in custody and has been transferred to a maximum security prison in Canada where he awaits parole, which, according to his attorney, could be as early as 2013.
