Omar Khadr questioned just hours after release from hospital

Omar Khadr was first interrogated about his alleged role in the death of a U.S. officer only hours after being released from a military hospital. Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured after a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, was first questioned by an army sergeant identified as Interrogator One. As the military judge heard during Khadr’s pre-trial hearing in Guantanamo Bay this week, the sergeant, who has been identified as Joshua Claus, was later convicted of abusing detainees. In affidavits discussing Khadr’s abuse allegations, he referred to Claus as “the skinny one,” alleging that he “told me that I was lucky that I had been injured, he would know how to ‘treat me,’ meaning he would torture me.” But in a 2008 interview with the Toronto Star, Claus insisted that he didn’t abuse Khadr, which he described as his “first big case.” Claus’s testimony is crucial in determining the admissibility of Khadr’s self-incriminating statements.

Toronto Star