Omar Khadr Interrogation Video Released

Well, for those who follow the Gitmo action, the interrogation video of Omar Khadr, the suspected terrorist picked up when he was 15 years old, was released by demand of the Canadian Supreme Court.

Here is a 10 minute clip. There's supposed to be 7 hours released at some point in time.

(a picture of Omar Khadr, then 15, before his capture)

From the New York Times: (and, more extensively, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)

Mr. Khadr, just 16 years old at the time of the taping, in February 2003, swung from calm and indifference to rage and grief during four days of interrogations in the recordings, which his Canadian lawyers released.

The recordings, turned over to the defense under a Canadian court order, provide the most extensive videotaped images from inside Guantánamo Bay yet seen. In them, Mr. Khadr, now the last Western citizen held there, is seen pleading with a Canadian intelligence agent for help. At one point, the recording shows him displaying chest and back wounds that had still not completely healed months after his capture in Afghanistan.

The seven hours of recordings were made by the United States military and given to Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyers by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service under the terms of an order by Canada’s Supreme Court.

They show Mr. Khadr, who is accused of killing a United States soldier in Afghanistan in battle in July 2002, being questioned by an unidentified member of the Canadian intelligence agency. A Canadian diplomat and a third person, apparently an American official, were also present.

For national security reasons, the audio was removed from several parts of the recordings, and the officials’ faces were electronically obscured by black blobs.

Mr. Khadr, a Canadian, maintains he was abused by American interrogators in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. It appears from the recordings, as well as from written documents of the interrogations that were released last week, that Mr. Khadr initially believed that the Canadian agent had come to help him. But he eventually seemed to realize that the agent was present only to extract information.

Man, to be 15 and captured by US armed forces. And then interrogated at age 16 at Gitmo. On the one hand, I feel pretty bad for him. I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle something like that when I was that young (or at my current age). On the other hand... he is a suspected terrorist. They come in all shapes and sizes. Interrogations are part of the process. Still though, it's no justification for torture (if the accusations are true). It'll be interesting to see where this goes and the public reaction that results.