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Documents: Canada knew of sleep deprivation

Associated Press

Canadian officials knew in 2004 that a Canadian teen being held at Guantánamo Bay was deprived of sleep for weeks to soften him up for interrogation, newly released documents say.

Department of Foreign Affairs reports say Canadian official Jim Gould visited Omar Khadr at the U.S. military base and was told by the American military that measures were taken to make the then-17-year-old more pliable for interviews.

The documents, released by Khadr's lawyers Wednesday and ordered to be released by a Canadian judge last month, are marked secret. Some parts are blacked out.

'In an effort to make him more amenable and willing to talk, (name omitted) has placed Umar (Omar) on the `frequent flyer program,' '' reads one of the reports penned by Scott Heatherington, director of foreign intelligence for Canada's Foreign Affairs Department.

``For the three weeks before Mr. Gould's visit, Umar (Omar) has not been permitted more than three hours in any one location. At three-hour intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted sleep and a continued change of neighbors.''

The report goes on to say that Khadr was to be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then interviewed again.

Khadr, the son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, is scheduled to face trial in October for allegedly lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier following a firefight in Afghanistan.

Last month a Canadian federal court judge ruled that the U.S. military's treatment of Khadr violated international laws against torture, but did not disclose details.

Judge Richard Mosley said the way the military prepared Khadr for interrogation with visiting Canadian government officials broke human rights laws, including the Geneva Conventions.

Khadr's Edmonton-based lawyer, Dennis Edney, said the documents should prompt Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to press Washington to release his client and to immediately send him back to Canada.

''We wish Canadians to know how this young boy has been abused,'' Edney said. ``The federal government, on behalf of Canadians, should bring this young man home.

``The Canadian government has for years lied to the Canadian people when it said time and time again that they had been assured by the Americans that this young man had been treated well.''

In addition to the Foreign Affairs Department documents there were also reports from the U.S. Air Force released. They show that Khadr's interrogators included special agents from the FBI and the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

An Air Force report from February 2003 notes that Khadr had not received any mail from his family in Canada since he was detained.

When he was finally given a letter from his grandmother, agents watched him on a video camera and through one-way glass as he cried while reading her words.

''Tears were coming from his eyes and he was rubbing his eyes and nose,'' the report says.

Edney and other lawyers for Toronto-born Khadr, who was captured in 2002 at age 15, sought the release of documents related to his interrogations by government officials to help defend him against a murder charge before a war-crimes tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Canada's Supreme Court ruled in May that Khadr has the right to partial access to the documents. It was up to Mosley to weigh the government's security concerns and determine what materials it should be obligated to release.

Mosley chastised the interrogator from Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, saying Canada ''became implicated'' when the agent proceeded to meet Khadr despite learning of the efforts to prime the prisoner.

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