Tag Archives: Toronto Film Festival

Sep 11 2015

Lawyers Omar Khadr in Court Today to Ease his Strict Bail Conditions

Omar Desires a Normal Life, Bail Conditions Relaxed

Omar’s pro bono lawyers, Dennis Edney and Nate Whitling, are in court today to argue for ease in his strict bail conditions.

Omar was finally granted bail on May 7, 2020 and tasted freedom for the first time in almost 13 years. In an affidavit, Omar says that re-entry has been “going great” and, “I have been embraced by many members of the community and made many new friends.” However, the ankle bracelet - a perpetual reminder that he is not a free man - which is part of his bail condition has caused him embarrassment (naturally) in public when it went off by itself.

After 13 years of wrongful imprisonment, Omar also wants to visit his family in Toronto, particularly his grandmother to whom he is very close to, and who is ill. Therefore Omar asks a Canadian court to ease his bail conditions so he can at least visit his family in Toronto; a natural desire to proceed towards a normal life.

Read the news articles:

Lawyers for Omar Khadr in court to argue for ease in bail conditions
The Canadian Press
September 11, 2020
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/lawyers-for-omar-khadr-in-court-to-argue-for-ease-in-bail-conditions-1.2557953

Omar Khadr wants bail eased so he can fly to Toronto to visit family
Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
September 4, 2020
http://www.610cktb.com/news/national/Article.aspx?id=478506

Khadr applies to have bail conditions relaxed
Sheila Pratt, Edmonton Journal
September 4, 2020
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/khadr+applies+relax+bail+conditions/11339070/story.html

Aug 6 2015

GUANTANAMO’S CHILD: OMAR KHADR | Trailer World Première, Toronto Film Festival 2015

The Untold Story Of Omar Khadr - documentary (80 min.)

Source Trailer: Toronto Film Festival 2015
Directors: Patrick Reed, Michelle Shephard
Cast: Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr is finally free, though on strict bail conditions while an appeal of his US military commission conviction is underway. He has been behind bars for the last 13 years, without any evidence of guilt. Many human rights issues in the case remain unresolved.
. 
a short history 
  • Omar (now 28) was born in Toronto.
  • In his youth, the family moved back and forth between Canada and Afghanistan, where his father worked as an aid worker,
  • On July 27, 2002, the house where his father had left Omar as a translator, was heavily bombed by U.S. forces. When found, barely alive under rubble, Omar was shot in the back and captured.
  • Months of brutal interrogations and torture followed during his captivity in Bagram.  Fifteen-year-old Omar was falsely accused and forced to confess to the killing of a U.S. soldier who fell during the battle.
  • October 2002, just 16, he was sent to Guantanamo, where he spent the next decade - often in solitary confinement.
  • On October 30, 2010, he was forced to plead guilty before a U.S. military commission in Guantanamo. He knew his only chance of getting out of there was to ‘confess’. The Guantanamo paradox: you had to lose to win. Those lucky enough to get charged and convicted got out.
  • The “crimes” he had to plead guilty to did not exist under Canadian, U.S. or international law. The Guantanamo court is not a real court as it is not internationally recognized. 
  • As a result, Omar is the only child ever convicted of a war crime and the only person convicted for any of the 7,000+ American casualties in the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
  • On September 26, 2012, he was repatriated to Canada and placed in a maximum security prison.
  • On May 7, 2015, after almost 13 years of wrongful imprisonment, he was finally released on bail, pending the appeal of his Guantanamo ‘conviction’.

Excerpt from Omar Khadr: Out of the Shadows - the 40 min. version of the documentary.