A Deal to Send Home a Canadian Gitmo Inmate?

U.S. and Canadian government officials deny it, but the lawyer for one of the most controversial inmates at Guantánamo Bay says some members of the Obama administration are working on a possible plan to send his client home to Canada. If Omar Khadr is repatriated before his military trial, currently scheduled to begin this summer—and administration officials insist that's a very big "if"—the move is sure to fuel conservative attacks on Obama's counterterrorism policies, especially since a lawyer who once advised Khadr's defense team is now at the Justice Department. But several administration officials say they are unaware of any such plan.

Nevertheless, Khadr's Washington-based defense lawyer, Barry Coburn, says he trusts recent Canadian media reports of a possible U.S. move to send Khadr home, such as a story circulated by the Canwest News Service. "I believe this report has substance to it," Coburn told Declassified in a telephone interview from Guantánamo, where military authorities are scheduled to begin hearings next month on defense motions seeking to have key elements of the prosecution's case against Khadr declared inadmissible. "I believe there is sensitivity in the U.S. government about not going through with this trial," he added, although he declined to say just who in the administration might be considering such a plan.

Coburn's client, who comes from a prominent family of Islamic militants, is accused by U.S. authorities of killing an American Special Forces medic in a firefight with suspected Al Qaeda members in July 2002. But at the time of the firefight—in which he is alleged to have thrown the grenade that killed Sfc. Christopher Speer—Khadr was only 15 years old, and that has made him a cause célèbre for human-rights campaigners and liberal activists in both Canada and the U.S. Although Khadr is said to have confessed under interrogation to participating in the firefight, Coburn says he will argue at next month's hearings that any incriminating statements attributed to Khadr should be suppressed on the grounds that they were coerced. "Any statements that they allege he made, I believe were the product of torture," says Coburn.

U.S. and Canadian officials say that as far as they know, Khadr's trial is going ahead as planned. A U.S. law-enforcement official, requesting anonymity while discussing sensitive information, says the Justice Department is no longer involved in the case, since the Khadr dossier has been transferred to the Pentagon for trial by a military commission. A Defense official, similarly asking anonymity, says the Pentagon is unaware of any diplomatic moves to ship Khadr back to Canada and says prosecutors are continuing to prepare for his evidence-suppression hearings in April and the opening of his trial in July. "The prosecution remains focused on its case," says a Defense Department spokesman. A third U.S. official familiar with administration detainee policy says that Khadr's military-commission trial is on course, and that there are no discussions between the U.S. and Canada that might in any way result in Khadr being released. Canadian and American defense lawyers familiar with the case say they believe Canada's government, currently led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would prefer that the Americans not send Khadr back to Canada. An official with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade says: "The Government of Canada has not received a request from the U.S. government to repatriate Mr. Khadr."

But if there is any sign that the young Canadian could go home, hardline Republicans will be ready to pounce. Conservative firebrand Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, has already raised a storm over lawyers in the Obama Justice Department who once represented suspected terrorists, and although a full transcript is not available, she reportedly referred to the Khadr case last week in an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, charging that the Canadian suspect had "killed Americans." In a Washingtonpost.com article late last week, former senior Clinton administration Justice official Walter Dellinger described how a lawyer at his private firm who now works for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel once helped to advise Khadr's military lawyer on complex and technical legal issues. "Shameful" is the word Dellinger used to describe attacks on such lawyers.