Omar Khadr: after Guantánamo, 'freedom is way better than I thought'
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Version 0 of 1. The most surprising thing about life in the modern world, observed the youngest person ever held at Guantánamo Bay hours after he walked free on bail, is that “freedom is way better than I thought.” Related: Canada frees Omar Khadr, once Guantánamo Bay's youngest inmate The statement on Thursday was the first Omar Khadr had ever delivered to the press since US troops captured him in an eastern Afghanistan firefight in July 2002. He grew, in confinement at Guantánamo Bay, from a 15-year-old boy into a man. On Thursday he spoke without malice toward his captors and asked that he be given a chance to demonstrate who he truly is – even as he figures that out for himself. Speaking with a light Canadian accent and a smile on a chilly Alberta evening in the manicured cul de sac where he will spend his bail time, living with his attorney Dennis Edney, Khadr thanked the Canadian public, despite years of demonization as a dangerous terrorist. “I’d just like to thank them and I would ask them to give me a chance, and they will be surprised,” Khadr said, even thanking the courts and sheriffs who “went out of their way to be kind” as they processed his exit from custody. When the Guardian asked if he had any message to the United States, he replied: “Well I can say I’m sorry for the pain I might [have] caused the families of the victims. There’s nothing I can do about the past. But I hope that the future … I can do something about the future.” Khadr in 2010 pleaded guilty to war crimes before a US military commission, including the murder by grenade of Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer. He later stated that he only pleaded guilty so he could leave Guantánamo and be repatriated to Canada, as he was in 2012. A judge on Thursday denied the conservative Canadian government’s last-ditch attempt to stop Khadr receiving bail, allowing the now 28-year-old to walk free as he appeals his war crimes conviction before a US military review tribunal. Despite the rhetoric, the Canadian government did not contend in its emergency plea this week that Khadr poses a threat to the public. Instead it acknowledged he was not a problem prisoner at either Guántanamo or the Canadian prisons that have held him since 2012. Canadian prison officials recently reclassified Khadr as a minimum-security prisoner at the Bowden Institution in Alberta. Still, Steven Blaney, the public safety minister, said in a statement after Khadr received bail: “We are disappointed with today’s decision and regret that a convicted terrorist has been allowed back into Canadian society without having served his full sentence.” Khadr had his own message for the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper: “I’m gonna have to disappoint him. I’m better than the person he thinks I am.” Khadr did not address his treatment at Guantánamo where he contends he was placed in stress positions, deprived of sleep for extensive periods and used as a “human mop” after he was confined for so long that he urinated on himself. “I want to start fresh. There’s too many good things in life,” Khadr said. His immediate plans were to eat a lamb dinner, his first meal in freedom, that the Edney family prepared for him. Cupcakes would follow, and some of his neighbors had dropped off flowers. One of them, Tim Winton, a 62-year old physician, watched the press conference in the Edneys’ driveway. He said he was struck by the “quality person Omar has turned into” – far from the dangerous man politicians have portrayed. “I’m sure Omar will be integrating into the neighborhood and we’re happy to welcome him,” Winton said, calling Khadr’s release on bail “a great day for our country, a great day for human rights and a great day to welcome him into our neighborhood”. Khadr’s voice only betrayed a touch of pain when he was asked about his father, a charity worker with ties to senior al-Qaida leaders who brought the family to Afghanistan in the 1990s and who was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003. “There’s a lot of questions I would like to ask my father right now … a lot of decisions that he made, reasons he took us back there, a whole bunch of questions about his reasoning, his life decisions,” Khadr said. Asked if he’d make similar life decisions, Khadr was terse: “No.” Instead, he said, he would like to finish his education and eventually seek a job in healthcare as he said it was important to empathize with people in pain. Asked what he would tell anyone contemplating extremism, Khadr urged education. “Don’t let emotions control you. Education is very important. “I’ve noticed a lot of people are manipulated by not being educated, so education is very important.” |