Canada won't seek return of Gitmo detainee

Canada will not seek the return of a young detainee at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Wednesday, a day after the release of a video showing the teenage prisoner sobbing for his mother and pleading for Canada's help.

A spokesman for Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said footage of Toronto-born terror suspect Omar Khadr being interrogated by Canadian officials in 2003 will not affect his government's position.

"These videos were in possession of the previous government when they decided to pursue the judicial process for Mr. Khadr to have his day in court in Guantanamo," Harper's chief spokesman Kory Teneycke told The Associated Press.

"We can't ignore the serious charges Mr. Khadr is facing," Teneycke said. "The proper forum for determining his guilt or innocence is a judicial process not a political process. We're not affected by what's on the cover of newspapers."

Khadr's lawyers released the film Tuesday to persuade Harper to seek the detainee's return before he is prosecuted for war crimes at a U.S. special tribunal in Guantanamo later this year.

Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, when he was 15. He could face life in prison if convicted.

The footage shows a then 16-year-old Khadr telling Canadian interrogators about torture he said he faced at the hands of U.S. officials.

Khadr denies killing American special forces soldier, Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The video prompted Canadians, the country's opposition politicians and human rights groups to demand that Harper seek the return of Khadr.

Khadr's American lawyer said Wednesday the judicial process at Guantanamo is not fair.

"Military commissions aren't designed to be fair. They're designed to produce convictions" Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler said from his office in Washington, D.C.

But Sgt. Layne Morris, who was blinded in firefight that left Speer dead, said Khadr was a terrorist and the video should elicit no sympathy.

"He's disappointed and discouraged that he's alive and he's in the hands of coalition forces instead of in paradise with 72 virgins," Morris said Wednesday from Portland, Ore.

The Utah soldier, who is expected to be a prosecution witness, insisted Khadr be tried in the U.S. because he "committed adult crimes" against Americans.

Kuebler said it doesn't matter if Khadr threw the grenade. "He's a child soldier and he deserves protections as a child soldier under international law."