TORONTO - Family members of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr said Friday that yet another delay in his war-crimes trial beyond the installation of a new U.S. president bodes well for him.
Reacting to news that a military commission judge hearing pretrial motions had set a start date of Jan. 26, 2009, Khadr's mother expressed delight.
"Oh good," Maha Elsamnah said from her home in Toronto. "His lawyers kept asking us to pray (for the delay)."
Both U.S. presidential candidates have said they would shut the prison at Guantanamo Bay if elected, though it remains unclear what might happen to Khadr if that happens.
Speaking from Parliament Hill where she's on a hunger strike, Khadr's sister Zaynab Khadr was upbeat about the delay.
"It's a good thing," she said. "The Bush administration is not going to be able to use Omar to justify their detention centre."
Zaynab Khadr, 29, has been consuming only water and fruit juice for the past three weeks in an effort to press Prime Minister Stephen Harper to repatriate her brother.
Harper has steadfastly refused, saying the internationally maligned legal proceedings against Khadr, who was just 15 when captured by U.S. forces, have to run their course.
"I'm hoping (the delay) will give the Canadian people and government more time to do the right thing and bring him home," Zaynab Khadr said.
"If he has to be tried, it should be in a Canadian court."
Khadr's lawyers had been pressing Col. Patrick Parrish to delay the trial, which had been slated to start Nov. 10.
They argued, among other reasons, that they needed time to allow completion of an independent psychological assessment of the prisoner.
Khadr, 22, has spent the past six years in custody at the infamous Guantanamo prison.
He is accused of war crimes, including throwing a hand grenade that killed an American army medic following a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002.
His lawyers said this week that the assessment is critical to Khadr's defence, as it would assess his ability to understand his legal rights and his recall of events.
An assessment would speak to the admissibility of statements he gave his captors in light of maltreatment that amounted to torture, his lawyers maintain.
Documents show, among other things, that Khadr was deprived of sleep, held in stress positions, and denied such items as sunglasses to protect his damaged eyes.
"I hope the whole thing will just fold and Omar will come back," Elsamnah said.
