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Speaker 1: Canada has given eight million dollars and an apology to

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Speaker 1: a former Guantanamobey prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a

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Speaker 1: US soldier in Afghanistan. Omar Cutter was captured by US

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Speaker 1: soldiers following a firefight in Afghanistan and suspected of throwing

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Speaker 1: the grenade that killed an American Special Forces medic and

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Speaker 1: caused another soldier to lose an eye. Caterpleted guilty in

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Speaker 1: to murder, attempted murder and spying. He appealed his guilty

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Speaker 1: plea in Canada and was released before serving the remainder

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Speaker 1: of his sentence. The case has caused controversy in Canada.

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Speaker 1: Here's Andrew Shear, the leader of the Conservative Party in Canada.

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Speaker 1: This sends a terrible message to Canada's men and women

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Speaker 1: in uniform and our allies around the world, and for

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Speaker 1: all their bravery and sacrifice our veterans now see Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Trudeau any ten point five million dollars to a

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Speaker 1: convicted terrorist who fought against them in Afghanistan. Serge and

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Speaker 1: Christopher Spears widow and also Sergeant Lane Morris won an

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Speaker 1: award of one thirty four million dollars against Cador for

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Speaker 1: wrongful death and injury in a US court in will

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Speaker 1: they see any part of that award? That's just one

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Speaker 1: question in this case. Joining us to answer many others

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Speaker 1: is Ramsey Cassim. He's a professor at Cuney School of

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Speaker 1: Law and j. Wells Dixon, senior staff attorney at the

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Speaker 1: Center for Constitutional Rights. Ramsey, this case has been going

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Speaker 1: on for some time. Can you briefly explain why Canada

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Speaker 1: made this deal? Isn't Cantor's appeal of his sentence still pending? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right? How does the feel of the sentence is

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Speaker 1: still pending? But the reason why the Canadian government has

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Speaker 1: offered and paid compensation to Omar care at this point

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Speaker 1: is because of Canada's role in his unlawful imprisonment at

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Speaker 1: Guantanamo and his interrogation at The Canadians sent a team

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Speaker 1: of entire gators there. And perhaps the single most important

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Speaker 1: fact about the case of Omar Cardor that was left

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Speaker 1: out in your earlier summery is that Ocado was a

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Speaker 1: child soldier. Uh he was one of many child soldiers

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Speaker 1: who were imprisoned by the United States of Guantanamo and

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Speaker 1: other facilities, and at the time of the alleged acts

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Speaker 1: that led to his conviction. Um, he was a minor

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Speaker 1: and when he was questioned by canadiansrogators at Guantanamo, he

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Speaker 1: was still a minder. And I think as a result

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Speaker 1: of all of these facts, the Canadian government has done

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Speaker 1: the right thing here by giving him compensation for its

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Speaker 1: own role in the violation of his rights. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are going to think

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Speaker 1: this is crazy that you'd give this money to somebody

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Speaker 1: who has admitted killing an American soldier in blinding another one. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, is he going to keep this money or

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Speaker 1: is the family going to be able to get it? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think that remains to be seen. I suspect it's

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Speaker 1: very unlikely that that the family will be able to

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Speaker 1: get this money. Um, because I have to emphasize what

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Speaker 1: Romsey said, which is that almar Cotter was a child, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's there's also no dispute at this point that

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Speaker 1: he suffered torture and abuse at Guantanamo and that Canada

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Speaker 1: was complicit in that. I mean, that was essentially the

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Speaker 1: finding of the Canadian Supreme Court in two thousand and ten,

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Speaker 1: and as the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recognized there are

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Speaker 1: legal consequences for that right. You can't just decide when

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Speaker 1: you're going to comply with the lawn when you're not

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Speaker 1: going to. And in a situation where someone has suffered

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Speaker 1: torture and abuse, they have a universal right to redress

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Speaker 1: into compensation for that torture. Uh. And and you know

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Speaker 1: that that is a principle that's enshrined in the Convention

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Speaker 1: against Torture right signed in this country in the United

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Speaker 1: States by Ronald Reagan. And so those are those are

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Speaker 1: undisputed facts. And as I understand, the case brought by

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Spirits family, um that that first of all, was

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Speaker 1: a default judgment, right almar Carter, as I understand, it

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Speaker 1: was never served with that case. But in any event,

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Speaker 1: the liability that supposedly attached their rests on on his

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Speaker 1: conviction at Guantanamo, which is illegitimate. I mean, not only

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Speaker 1: is he a um was he a child right and

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Speaker 1: therefore not criminally culpable for whatever he may have done.

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Speaker 1: And we still don't know what he may have done.

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Speaker 1: But let me just stop you for one second. Wells

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Speaker 1: just speaking, he was a child, he was fifteen in

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Speaker 1: some states. If he were in the United States, he

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Speaker 1: would be tried as an adult. And he he there

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Speaker 1: is evidence that he was responsible for the death of

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Speaker 1: once a medic sergeant who was a medic and who

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Speaker 1: left a wife and two children behind, and also the

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Speaker 1: loss of an eye of another one. He also has

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Speaker 1: ties to al Qaeda. I mean, there's a lot more

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Speaker 1: to this than just he was he was fifteen. Well,

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Speaker 1: I disagree, Uh, those facts have not been proven. And

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Speaker 1: as the Canadian Supreme Court found, he was the subject

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Speaker 1: to durest. He was subjected to durest, to torture and abuse,

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Speaker 1: and you cannot convict someone of a purported war crime

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Speaker 1: under those circumstances. That's just it's it's clear, you know,

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Speaker 1: universal law in the United States to the extent that

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Speaker 1: it that it sees this differently, maybe the only country

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Speaker 1: in the world that sees it differently. Certainly the Canadians

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Speaker 1: don't view it that way. Um. And and his appeal

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Speaker 1: is ongoing, right, he is still pursuing his direct his

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Speaker 1: direct appeal from his conviction at Guantanamo for you know,

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Speaker 1: putting his age aside for offenses that are very unlikely

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Speaker 1: uh to be found to be international law of war offenses. Right,

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Speaker 1: so that conviction is not likely to stand up on review,

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Speaker 1: if particularly if you look at at some of the

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Speaker 1: other Guantanama military convictions that have been appealed, including Mike

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Speaker 1: client David Hicks, right, his conviction was vacated after his

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Speaker 1: release because he didn't commit what is recognized anywhere ash

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Speaker 1: an international law of war offense. It's just what, well, Ramsey,

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Speaker 1: We've got about thirty seconds here, But what is the uh,

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Speaker 1: what is the process now? If the families wanted to

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Speaker 1: get their hands on this money, I'm really not very

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Speaker 1: familiar with Candian Canadian procedure. I mean, I in my

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Speaker 1: understanding is that the family has initiated a proceeding in

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Speaker 1: Canada to try to do precisely that, and I'm guessing

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Speaker 1: that the Canadian justice system will tickets course and ultimately

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Speaker 1: reaches determination as to whether or not, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Beers family will will get a share or you know,

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Speaker 1: some part of Mr Cotter's recovery. Um wells from from

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Speaker 1: what I've read, there's very little chance that the widow

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Speaker 1: or the sergeant will get a share. Is that your understanding?

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Speaker 1: That is my understanding? Yeah? All right, well, thank you

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Speaker 1: both for being on Bloomberg Law. That's j Wells Dixon,

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Speaker 1: Senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and

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Speaker 1: Ramsey Cassim, Professor at Cuney School of Law. That's it

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Speaker 1: for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We'll be back tomorrow

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Speaker 1: thanks to our technical director Chris trike Comey and our

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Speaker 1: producer David Suckerman. Coming up on Bloomberg Radio, we have

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets with Carol Master and Corey Johnson, and Carol

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Speaker 1: is here finally with some time to tell us what's

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Speaker 1: going to happen. Finally more than fifteen seconds. It's been busy, right.

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Speaker 1: We actually my co host core Johnson out at Amazon headquarters.

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Speaker 1: He's been checking out some Amazon Prime cargo plans because

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Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day starts at nine pm this evening Wall

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Speaker 1: Street time, so we'll talk about that. We've also got

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Speaker 1: the chief operating officer over at PayPal and Coca Cola

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Speaker 1: Shop there not since my daughter was very small, well,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people aren't in the stocks down, so

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a bit about what's going on that

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Speaker 1: and I have to do some looking into what Amazon

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Speaker 1: Prime Day is all right, Stay tuned for all that

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Speaker 1: and more here on Bloomberg Radio. I'm June Grosselo with

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