By Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter

OTTAWA — Canadian agents acted illegally when they interrogated Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr and handed that intelligence to U.S. authorities, the Supreme Court ruled today in a decision damning the Bush administration’s treatment of foreign terrorism suspects.

The unanimous decision released this morning said the federal government now must hand over documents pertaining to those 2003 interrogations by agents with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Foreign Affairs Department, since Canada participated in a process that was contrary to international law.

The ruling delivers a blow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government which has been unwavering in its support of the U.S. war crimes prosecution of Khadr despite mounting domestic and international pressure.

In making its findings about the legality of Guantanamo, the high court justices relied on two key U.S. Supreme Court cases that previously ruled that the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects and the Pentagon’s first war crimes trials were illegal.

But today’s ruling marks Canada’s strongest pronouncement condemning Guantanamo Bay and Canada’s treatment of Khadr and could exert increased pressure on the government to intervene.

“The violations of human rights identified by the United States Supreme Court are sufficient to permit us to conclude that the regime providing for the detention and trial of Mr. Khadr at the time of the CSIS interviews constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights protected by international law,” states the unanimous ruling released this morning.

Khadr’s Canadian lawyers Nate Whitling and Dennis Edney have fought for years to get documents from the federal government concerning Khadr’s case. They argued that the material was essential in preparing his defence and providing him the constitutional right to a fair trial.

Government lawyers had countered that they did not have an obligation to disclose documents for a U.S. trial.

The Federal Court of Appeals had previously ordered the government to turn over material concerning Khadr to a federal court judge who would vet the material for national security concerns. That process continued as the government appealed to the Supreme Court.

While today’s decision will now allow the federal court to complete its review, the Supreme Court did limit the scope of material that should be provided to Khadr’s lawyers. Only information concerning Canada’s interrogations of Khadr or subsequent material turned over the U.S. can be disclosed.

It’s unclear whether this ruling now limits Khadr’s lawyers from seeing a U.S. post-battle report in Canada’s possession that may contradict other accounts of the July 2002 firefight. Military prosecutors told a Guantanamo court last month that the original report had gone missing.

Toronto-born Khadr was 15 when he was shot and captured following a July 27, 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. Now 21 and the sole Western detainee remaining at the offshore U.S. prison, Khadr is expected to go on trial later this year.

He is charged under a 2006 military law with five war crimes, including murder for the death of U.S. Delta Force solider Christopher Speer.

Although he had been kept incommunicado with the exception of interrogations for his first two years of detention, Khadr does now receive visits from his lawyers and a Canadian consular official.

Next month Khadr will appear again before a military judge in Guantanamo as his case moves into the next stage of pre-trial hearings. It’s expected that prosecutors will again ask army Col. Peter Brownback, who is presiding over Khadr’s case, to set a date for his trial.

Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/ycnz9xd