Hours after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Omar Khadr should never have been sentenced as an adult, his lawyer Dennis Edney spoke to a packed room in Dunton Tower about the magnitude of his 13 year legal battle on Khadr’s behalf on May 15.
The talk, titled “Omar Khadr: Facts over Fear,” centered around Edney’s highly personal story, beginning with his first introduction to Khadr, then 15 years old, in Guantanamo Bay, where Edney persuaded the despondent and guarded young man to open up by offering him one of his young son’s hockey cards.
Edney said he then became involved in Khadr’s case, taking on a legal battle larger than he had ever imagined.
“There is nothing I am telling you that your government does not know,” Edney stated more than once, as he described the “kangaroo courts” and “wildly incompetent” military lawyers Khadr faced in Guantanamo.
Khadr, a Canadian citizen born in Toronto, had been living in Afghanistan with his parents in 2002 when he was detained by US soldiers who accused him of throwing a grenade that killed a Delta Force soldier.
Edney said he holds this is false, and presented his evidence to military courts in 2009—but in 2010, it became clear that a guilty plea would be the only option to get Khadr out of Guantanamo and back to Canada.
Edney said he used much of his speech to emphasize what he viewed as fear-mongering surrounding Khadr’s case, including his continuing classification as a risk to national security and his continued treatment as a terrorist despite being formally recognized by the UN as a child soldier.
Of Khadr’s recent television interview, given when he was released on bail, Edney said, “the last thing [the federal government] wants you to see is what you saw. They want you to understand that he is evil.”
“I never thought of myself as a human rights lawyer,” Edney said. “But when I was in Guantanamo, I realized—this is evil. I think we have a duty, all of us, as citizens. Justice is what unites us all. If we think that way, we will never allow places like Guantanamo to exist.”
Fourth-year human rights student Sophia Mirzayee said she was glad she attended the talk.
“I’ve been following the case for a while now,” she said, “and the talk was really timely, since [Khadr] has just been released on bail and his hearing was this morning.”
She said what struck her the most was Edney’s story about Khadr’s isolation in prison.
“When Dennis said that it was easier for Omar to remain in his head rather than acknowledge the reality of his situation, it made me think that sometimes we as citizens remain in our heads and aren’t willing to acknowledge the reality of what is happening in our country,” she said.
Khadr is presently free on bail and, according to Edney, is living with him and his family.
