Nov. 18, 2007
Omar Khadr: The Youngest Terrorist?
Was Only 15 Years Old When He Was Captured In Afghanistan
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Minor Tried As Terrorist
Omar Khadr is the only person in modern history to be tried for war crimes that he allegedly committed as a minor. Bob Simon reports on the controversy surrounding his case.
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Omar Khadr (CBS)
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Evidence like images caught on a videotape, found in the rubble after Khadr was captured. A man seen in the video is teaching the other men how to attach detonation wires to land mines. Also seen on the tape is a young man who appears to be Omar Khadr, helping put together a firing device.
Later in the videotape, you can see the land mines being planted in the ground, in the dark, most likely aimed at American soldiers.
Abdurrahman Khadr, one of Omar's older brothers, says Omar was in that compound that day because his father had sent him there.
Abdurrahman Khadr lives in Canada. He, too, was brought up as a Muslim extremist but, he says, he switched sides and worked with the CIA after 9/11. In spite of the videotape, he believes Omar went to the compound to act as a translator, not a fighter.
"He was sent there by my father and as an obedient kid and he said okay," Abdurrahman Khadr says.
And that is the heart of Omar Khadr’s defense, his lawyers say: that he had no choice because he had been indoctrinated since earliest childhood to be a good soldier for Allah and an obediant son.
"When you look at the strict culture he's from, you don't challenge your elders," Edney says. "So when his father tells the 15 year old boy, 'You’re going with these three men and you’re going to be a translator,' that’s what the boy does."
That, and everything else his father tells him to do. His father was Ahmed Said Khadr, a radical Muslim who had fought with the Mujahadeen against the Russians.
He was born in Egypt, then emigrated to Canada, and in 1993 moved his family to Afghanistan, where he ran a series of orphanages for Afghan children.
He brought up Omar the way he brought up a group of orphans, to believe there is only one way, the Muslim way, and that the dream of every young man should be getting to paradise by dying as a martyr. A video of Ahmed and the orphans was made in 2001, when the late George Crile, a 60 Minutes producer and author, went to Afghanistan to report on the world of extremist Muslims.
By this time, Omar Khadr's father was not only a well known relief worker, he was on a U.N. list of those associated with terrorism.
Asked if he was a terrorist, Ahmed Khadr told Crile in 2001, "I am not a terrorist."
Not a terrorist, he said, but he fervently believed that Afghanistan should be a Muslim state and that the United States was the enemy of Islam. "It looks like after we have removed the Russian Empire, we’ll have to end up removing also the American Empire," Ahmed Khadr told Crile.
He said that just three weeks before 9/11, an event Omar's father claimed he didn’t take part in, but didn't seem to feel sorry about, either.
"When September 11th happened, my dad was like, 'Yes, we attacked the enemy,'" Abdurrahman Khadr recalls. "For him, when he says 'We,' he doesn’t mean we, our family, he means we, Islam."
"It was Islam taking revenge against the United States?" Simon asks.
"Yes. And that's what he believed," Abdurrahman Khadr explains.
The six Khadr children grew up among other Arabic speaking families in Afghanistan, including the bin Ladens. They knew Osama bin Laden's children and sometimes played together. They even lived on and off in the same compound as Osama.
Asked if he looked up to Osama bin Laden, Abdurrahman Khadr tells Simon, "It was amazing to meet the person who was the most wanted person in the world. The minute he walked into the room and I was like, 'Wow, I just saw this person in the magazine and now he’s right here in front of me.' It was like a superstar, I think."
Some of the Khadr boys also went to summer training camps run by bin Laden,
something Abdurrahman says all the Arab kids in Afghanistan did. "Going to the camps, training camps is, like, for kids here to go to a hockey camp," he says.
He describes his family as sympathetic to the Taliban and al Qaeda, but not hardcore members of either. "We socialized with them more than had like business. My dad had some business deals with Osama. But not the rest of the family," Abdurrahman Khadr says.
But he acknowledges that they were brought up to fight for Islam.
Produced By Catherine Olian and George Crile
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 79 CommentsBush is the real terrorist. He has terrorized our nation into abandoning its principles. Bush is a war criminal.
It''s not enough that we imprison without charge, torture, rape, soddomize, and execute people, in secret prisons and illegal detention centers like Guantanimo. We have to engage in this sub-human behavior against children as well.
What a disgraceful nation we have become.
Re: "Says Altenburg, "Because there is circumstantial evidence that would indicate he was the one who threw the grenade."
"Meaning no one else was found alive who could have thrown it."
So we have circumstantial evidence against a child that has been held for years, in this disgraceful and illegal detention center.
What more proof do the craven terrorists presiding over this illegitimate kangaroo court need to convict and execute this child?
What a disgraceful nation we have become.
Posted by FeelFree1 at 09:47 PM : Nov 18, 2007
+ report abuse
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I would not be suprised that you think that way..its well documented that you think that this country is evil and islam is the next best thing since sliced bread.
(did you even read the topic?)
Re: "The fighting went on for hours. By the time it was over, the compound was completely destroyed by 500 pound bombs."
"Morris didn''t think anybody inside the compound could still be alive. "The assumption was that everybody''s dead in there," he says."
Sounds like ***. If the structure was "completely destryoed", how could there be an "in there"? Wouldn''t it be simply a pile of rubble?
The U.S. has no case against this boy, otherwise he would not be waiting for 5 years for his day in a sham trial.
U.S. soldiers had no legitimate business in Afghanistan in the first place.
Even if the claims against this boy were true, which is highly doubtful, this could easily be dismissed as a case of self defense if the building was being attacked by the U.S. forces, as appears to be the case.
What a sick joke.
Google ''Krongard 9/11''
Re: "Out of the 305 detainees in Guantanamo, Omar Khadr''s case will be only the second to be prosecuted."
Obviously they have no case against these illegally held detainees, and obviously they are not the "worst of the worst", as has been claimed, since so many of them have already been released, without charge, folowing their torure and lengthy detension at Guantanimo."
Re: "The U.S. says an eyewitness has recently provided new evidence that could bolster Khadr''s defense."
If this boy was the only one found alive, how could there be any eyewitnesses?
This case is obviously garbage, even if it wasn''t being conducted at an illegal detention center by a kangaroo court of fascistic cowards.
U have been reading the wrong history. Never, Never has the US went to war from a UN resolution or word of another country.The last war when there was a vote taken was WW2, by F D Roosevelt. The whole world INCLUDING THE UN WAS AGAINST ATTACKING IRAQ.
nyckate,
If a child of yours were held for years without being charged, in an illegal prison, and his captors told you over and over again that he or she was a "terrorist", would that be enough to satisfy you of their guilt?
Aren''t these terrorists even younger?
www.informationliberation.com/files/192642682_2fea4cce66_o.jpg
www.informationliberation.com/files/192642681_c4903905bd_o.jpg
Re: "Khadr is a Canadian citizen, he likes Harry Potter, and he was only 15 years old when he was captured..."
Harry Potter, eh?
Seems like if they would simply turn him over to the 700 Club, or some other Christian Taliban organization, rather than bother with a sham trial, and had him executed on live TV, they could get a few more votes in the next election cycle.
'' ... what''s the difference in ruling forever because one wants to, and because one will be damned not to? whatever difference one chooses ... my soul spans forever, and i get a bad dream here or there now or then and chaos seems to rumble round till i calm inside and out and remember it was all my fault and i never truly cut anyone but myself ... i only glance at you cruelly because you are not the one i wish that i could be; though, i''m sure to be again ... ''
The label terrorist is similiar to the communist label given to many for supposed unAmerican activities. THese are prisnoers of war. and Omar is a child soldier. As such he should be tried as child soldier who was influenced by a fauly paradies with 42 virgins awaiting hime (lured by ***).
There is no evidence showing he threw the grenade that killed the medic. It could have been thrown by one his dead counterparts. This is a sad day in America. Holding a child in prsion for 6 years without a trial is a shame. We will be hated even more by Islam.
The Bush administration has tarmished our human rights record with Guantanamo, ruined our credibility with lies of the war, placed the US dangerously in debt where we can''t provide for our own children and severly ruined international ties for decades to come. Bring this trrops home and forget this unhumane war that has cost lives and enriched Bush''s buddies.
Sober up.
Posted by FeelFree1 at 11:48 PM : Nov 18, 2007
Like it or not he''s a terrorist, got nothin'' to do with the 700 club, Karl Marx, Groucho Marx or Captain Kangaroo. It''s all about the 00 and 04 elections with you still, get over it.
Because he is not an American citizen in our criminal justice system. You contradict yourself; you call him a POW, which he technically is not of course since Al Qaeda nor the Taliban were ever signatories to Geneva and their "soldiers" do not wear uniforms and routinely target civilians. But, assume he was a POW (and I advocate TREATING them as such even if they are not legally), that means we can and SHOULD hold him and the others until the conflict is over; they should NOT be tried, especially in our civilian courts! When Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri surrender or Al Qaeda is killed into oblivian, then the war will be over and POWs released. POWs are released during wartime only when hostilities have ceased or in a prisoner exchange, and we know there won''t be one of those because while we give their prisoners good meals, recreation time, copies of the Koran, medical care, and prayer mats; they have no prisoners of ours because anyone they get their hands on is beheaded on the internet!!
www.poconocommunitynews.com
A 15 year old killer! Now what would a 15 year old Canadian be doing wandering around eastern Afghanistan throwing grenades at U.S. forces. Try him and lock up the TERRORIST
Posted by fredgrad2000
The extremism of their ideology will not end with their capture or demise. How many more Omar Khadr have been brainwashed into believing the justice of their cause that will carry it on? One has to confront and dismantle the ideology in order to end it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYjQpFAGUrQ
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