OTTAWA - The civilian watchdogs who keep tabs on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service are launching a review of how the spy agency handled the Omar Khadr case.
Former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, head of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, says the study is needed to maintain public confidence that the security service is acting appropriately and within the law.
Khadr, a Canadian citizen, has been detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, for most of the last six years.
He's facing charges of murder and other terrorist-related offences in the death of an American soldier in Afghanistan, but his lawyers say he can't get a fair trial from the military tribunal scheduled to hear his case.
It's known that CSIS officers questioned Khadr at Guantanamo in 2003 and that his U.S. captors deprived him of sleep and took other steps to soften him up in advance of the interviews.
Public release of the interrogation videos, in which the youthful Khadr was seen crying for his mother at one point, sparked an international furor in July.
