Ottawa

About that process

The Globe talks to Darrel Vandeveld.

Lieutenant-Colonel Darrel Vandeveld had been a prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay for one year when he went to seek advice from a priest. He wondered whether he should resign from a legal system he had come to believe was a sham, but he expected to hear he should stick with it and work within the system.

The priest offered no such advice. Instead he told the lawyer: “Quit. Do not co-operate with evil.”

Last fall, Mr. Vandeveld did quit the controversial Guantanamo Bay military commissions system, becoming the latest member of the U.S. military to resign for ethical reasons. Last week, he spoke to The Globe and Mail about his transformation from a hardened prosecutor bent on revenge, to one of Guantanamo Bay’s harshest critics – a man who now believes that many of the Guantanamo detainees, including Canadian Omar Khadr, were grossly abused.

“We’ve mistreated that poor fellow,” Mr. Vandeveld said of Mr. Khadr, “regardless of what he’s done.”

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