There is "no credible evidence" Canadian-born Omar Khadr was tortured or even threatened after he was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002, wrote the military judge presiding his trial at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
In a court document The Miami Herald posted online Friday, judge Patrick Parrish said "there is no credible evidence the accused was ever tortured as that term is defined... even using a liberal interpretation considering the accused's age."
Kadhr, the last Westerner held at the US prison facility, was 15 when he was arrested for lobbing a hand grenade that killed a US sergeant during a 2002 attack in Afghanistan. The Canadian-born son of an al Qaeda leader who died in 2003, Kadhr's trial by a US military commission began last week with a bombshell, when Parrish admitted as evidence all statements he made under interrogation at Afghanistan's Bagram prison.
The ruling came after Khadr's first US interrogator told to the judge in May that he had threatened the boy with tales of rape and murder in US jails to make him talk. The interrogator was later court martialed for abusing prisoners in Bagram. Parrish, in the court document dated August 17, said "there is no evidence that the story caused the accused to make any incriminating statements then or in the future." Khadr's trial was suspended a week ago for at least 30 days after his lawyer collapsed in court and was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States.
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