In this courtroom sketch Omar Khadr, far left, sits with his defense team during a hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Wednesday.

From CBC News

CSIS ignored human-rights concerns and did not take Omar Khadr’s age into account in deciding to interview him at the U.S. military’s Guantanamo Bay prison, says a report from the independent committee that oversees the spy agency.

The Toronto-born Khadr, now 22, is being held at the U.S. detention centre in Cuba for allegedly throwing a grenade in Afghanistan when he was 15, killing an American soldier. He is the only Western citizen still detained at Guantanamo.

A report from the security intelligence review committee (SIRC), released Wednesday in Ottawa, said documents also show Khadr’s U.S. captors threatened him with rape, kept him alone and would not let him sleep. Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers questioned Khadr at Guantanamo Bay in 2003 and shared the results of their interrogations with the Americans.

However, the report did not find that CSIS was complicit in Khadr’s alleged torture at the hands of U.S. interrogators.

The committee recommended that CSIS take human-rights issues into consideration in future probes and also establish a policy framework to guide its dealings with young people.

“As part of this, the service should ensure that such interactions are guided by the same principles that are entrenched in Canadian and international law,” the SIRC report said.

CSIS reviewing report

CSIS “will give careful consideration to [the report's] findings and recommendations,” the agency said in a statement.

“CSIS has had to adapt to the more recent phenomenon of youth radicalization and will consider SIRC’s findings as it continues to assess how it deals with this threat.”

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said, “We are reviewing the report with interest. As you know, it deals with events that took place under the previous Liberal government.”

Since the Conservatives came to power, they have implemented a new CSIS protocol for dealing with people under age 18, he added.

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Tags: CSIS, Guanta, Guantanamo Bay, Human Rights, Omar Khadr, Peter Van Loan, SIRC

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