OTTAWA (AFP) — Canadian detainee Omar Khadr was forcibly sleep deprived by his US captors in Guantanamo Bay to soften him up for questioning by Canadian officials, media here said Thursday.
Citing government files released by court order, Canadian media said Khadr was moved to a different cell every three hours to make him more amenable to talking in what US authorities described as their "frequent-flyer program."
"At three-hours intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted sleep and a continued change of neighbors," said the report from the Foreign Intelligence Division of Canada's Foreign Affairs department, quoted by Canadian television and newspapers.
Then, after Canadian officials met with Khadr in March 2004, he was to be placed in isolation for three weeks and interviewed again, said the documents.
Khadr is the youngest detainee in the US "war on terror," accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed a US soldier in a melee in Afghanistan.
He was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15 years old, and faces trial by a special military tribunal in October at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been detained since his arrest.
A Canadian judge studying the Foreign Affairs documents said last month that Khadr's treatment violated international laws on human rights, and ordered the documents released to Khadr's lawyers.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a G8 summit in Japan told reporters he would not ask the US government to repatriate Khadr, downplaying the latest revelations.
Until now, Harper has repeatedly said he had sought assurances from US authorities that Khadr was not being mistreated, but Khadr's US attorney now charges that Khadr was mistreated and Canada knew it.
"There is a legal process underway by American authorities, and Canada has sought assurances that Mr. Khadr, under our government, will be treated humanely and we are monitoring those legal processes very carefully and we think that that is the best way to go given all of the facts," said Harper.
"We always act as a government on the basis of our legal advice and international obligations," he added.
Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, a US military lawyer representing Khadr at hearings in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, meanwhile told public broadcaster CBC: "It is absolutely shameful and shocking that the Canadian government would continue to be the last western country to tolerate the treatment of a citizen in this way."
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