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Toronto: Lawyers for a Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay released excerpts of videotaped interrogations on Tuesday, providing a first-ever glimpse into the secretive world of questioning enemy combatants at the isolated US prison in Cuba.
The 10 minutes of video, selected by Omar Khadr's Canadian lawyers from more than seven hours of footage recorded by a camera hidden in a vent, shows a 16-year-old Khadr weeping, his face buried in his hands, during the 2003 interrogation that took place over four days.
The video, created by US government agents provides insight into the effects of prolonged interrogation and detention on the Guantanamo prisoner.
A Canadian Security Intelligence Services agent in the video grills Khadr about events leading up to his capture as an enemy combatant when he was 15.
Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. He was arrested after he was found in the rubble of a bombed-out compound, badly wounded and near death.
At one point in the interrogation, Khadr pulls off his orange prisoner shirt and shows the wounds he sustained in the firefight. He complains he can't move his arms and says he had requested, but hadn't received, proper medical attention.
Khadr also tells his interrogator that he was tortured while at the US military detention center at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was first detained after his arrest in 2002.
The video is believed to be the first footage shown of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in action during its 24-year history, offering an unprecedented glimpse into its interrogation strategies.
The video was made public under Canadian court orders, and released by Alberta-based lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney a week after intelligence reports were released.
A Department of Foreign Affairs report said Canadian official Jim Gould visited Khadr in 2004 and was told by the American military that the detainee was moved every three hours to different cells to deprive him of sleep and familiar cell mates.
Whitling and Edney released the video with hopes that public reaction to the footage will prompt Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to lobby for his repatriation.
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