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[WASHINGTON, 31 July 2008] - As he met with U.S. lawmakers this week, Canadian Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of flouting international law for refusing to repatriate Canadian Omar Khadr from the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Dallaire, the former commander of United Nations troops during the Rwanda genocide, met with U.S. congressional leaders to push for the return of Khadr, the last western detainee at Guantanamo Bay. In an interview with Canwest News Service, Dallaire accused Harper of not standing up for the broader international legal principles at stake in Khadr's case - particularly Canada's signature on a UN convention to protect child soldiers - suggesting that Harper saw the matter as politically unpopular. Dallaire said he wants to draw attention to the failings of Canada and the U.S. to live up to their obligations under the UN's Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The senator met with Democratic chairs of two House subcommittees that study human rights and civil liberties and was to have a briefing with a top State Department official on war crimes. Khadr, who was born in Toronto but whose father was an associate of Osama bin Laden, has been in U.S. custody since 2002 when he was captured after a gun battle in Afghanistan when he was 15-years-old. He faces a military tribunal for killing a U.S. soldier in the fall. "He wasn't a kid in downtown Toronto blasting away. He was sucked in by family pressure and ended up in a war as a minor, as a child soldier," said Dallaire. Dallaire said the "politics" of Khadr's family has reduced debate of his fate to a "low-level." "That is to say, 'we've got soldiers in Afghanistan, this kid went out and started shooting up coalition soldiers and so he's getting what he deserves.'" Harper said three weeks ago his government has "no real alternative" but to allow the U.S. military tribunal to run its course. Canada is the only western country not to seek the repatriation of one of its citizens from Guantanamo, which has been widely denounced by human rights groups and politicians as an illegal prison. Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain reiterated on his recent visit to Ottawa that he considers Guantanamo to be illegal and he would close it if he wins the White House. Dallaire said he is not being soft on terrorism, and that Khadr would face Canadian justice, particularly the provisions of the anti-terrorism law, if he were extradited. "I see him being in custody, I see him bring brought through a judicial instrument that will permit a transfer, a plea bargaining process, but done in accordance with the protocol," he said. "Those that say if we apply the protocol and as he's going to walk off the plane and go home, that is not even close to what has been proposed already in terms rehabilitation, integration and custody." A recent Ipsos Reid poll for the National Post found that Canadians favoured keeping Khadr in U.S. custody by a 60-40 margin. Further information
"We signed a convention. He (Harper) is actually accepting a process that's going dead against international law and conventions that we have been part of the authorship thereof. And he's the prime minister," said Dallaire.
pdf: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c48292f0-c551-4...