Conservative Christian is Omar Khadr's last line of defenceFrom Saturday's Globe and Mail
July 19, 2008 at 12:38 AM EDT
OTTAWA It wasn't too long ago that Bill Kuebler was as Red State as they come: a family man, a born-again Christian, a successful business lawyer, a political conservative with an unblemished record of voting Republican.
Today, the 37-year-old Navy lawyer is still as committed a Christian as ever, but he spends his time fiercely defending an alleged radical Muslim murderer Canadian Omar Khadr.
Instead of working at a lucrative civilian practice, Lieutenant-Commander Kuebler is publicly blasting the U.S. government for what he describes as a sham system in Guantanamo, and Ottawa for failing to fight to bring Mr. Khadr home.
In the process, he has sometimes incurred Washington's wrath. He has also caused Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative government much discomfort.
But the man who has fought so fiercely for Mr. Khadr's defence simply predicates his actions on the question: What would Jesus do?
Jesus was reputed to associate with the unpopular people the sinners and the outcasts of his time, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler said in an interview from his Washington office.
There's an interesting parallel between that and what we do as criminal defence lawyers, because we're typically encountering people who have done bad things or are alleged to have done bad things and are at a pretty low ebb in their lives.
To show that you can serve somebody in that position and do it without hesitation and without judgment and reservation it's a powerful way to demonstrate what we believe in as far as God's grace and forgiveness for sin.
Since taking on Mr. Khadr's case one year ago, and especially in the past few months, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has been a fixture in Canadian media, appearing before TV cameras in his impossibly wrinkle-free uniform to argue on behalf of a deeply polarizing figure from a much-loathed family. This week, the lawyer appeared on myriad news shows to talk about the newly released video of Mr. Khadr's interrogation at the hands of Canadian intelligence agents five years ago. The footage the first ever showing an interrogation in Guantanamo momentarily became the biggest news story in the world.
But behind Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler's impassioned defence of his client are contrasts so stark they border on contradiction. Here is a conservative Christian defending an alleged radical Muslim; a U.S. military man representing someone accused of killing a U.S. military man; a lawyer who attacks the Guantanamo Bay military commissions system as an outright sham even as his client is one of the very few detainees not to boycott that system.
That mindset has taken the lawyer from a lucrative civil litigation career in the U.S. to the most controversial prison in the world, taking on a case he freely admits cannot be won in a Guantanamo courtroom, regardless of the evidence.
But as an October trial date looms for Mr. Khadr, the Navy lawyer still believes that with enough public pressure, Ottawa will relent and ask for the detained Canadian's return. To achieve that goal, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has his sights set on changing the minds of those Canadians who are most like him: committed conservatives.
UNLIKELY DEFENDERSIt wasn't long after Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler first set foot in Guantanamo that he was told he couldn't see his client.
This was late 2005, and the lawyer had recently volunteered to participate in the defence of those facing trial before the military commissions system. Believing the system was no different from the court-martial process, he quickly discovered significant differences.
For one thing, his client at the time, a Saudi named Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, didn't want a lawyer. Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler, assisted by an Arabic translator, sought access to the prisoner's cell. Even as prosecutors freely entered the cell to serve Mr. al Sharbi his charges, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler was told he couldn't go in.
So you had this situation where, if I'm a government lawyer, I can do whatever I need to do to accomplish my mission, he says. If I'm a defence lawyer, all of a sudden there are all these made-up rules to keep me from doing my job. It was this nice little microcosm of Guantanamo and how it's rigged, just in that first little day.
But instead of leaving the process after his first experience with the commission system, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler instead took on the case of then-20-year-old Omar Khadr.
When the lawyer first met the detained Canadian, Mr. Khadr was still in solitary confinement. He had no hope; he didn't want to participate, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler says. He was not interested in co-operating with me. It was a tough first meeting.
It didn't help that Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler and his co-counsel, Rebecca Snyder, are Americans. Indeed, a big part of the reason Mr. Khadr talked to the duo at all was because his Canadian lawyers, Dennis Edney and Nathan Whitling, vouched for them.
Omar was one of the few people we thought we were going to help, Ms. Snyder says. If you look at someone like [alleged 9/11 attacks architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed], you can't really do anything to help. Omar comes from Canada.
We felt there was some way to help him.
Ms. Snyder had just wrapped up the David Hicks case the only conviction in the history of the military commissions system when she joined Mr. Khadr's defence team. Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty to material support for terrorism and was sentenced to spend nine months in jail in his native Australia. Ms. Snyder describes the Hicks process as 100-per-cent political.
(Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler and Ms. Snyder make an odd team. The Navy lawyer spends what free time he has with his five-year-old son. Ms. Snyder is a budding rock climber whose idea of a good time involves trekking up Mount Everest.) Although both Ms. Snyder and Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler argue they are vigorously representing Mr. Khadr in Guantanamo, it is clear that their strategy bears many similarities to the Hicks case. If the public back home find out enough about the Guantanamo process, the thinking goes, they will put pressure on their government to bring the prisoner back.
To that effect, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has employed a careful media strategy. He regularly sends a host of reporters press releases containing everything from just-declassified court documents to newspaper articles he finds important. He makes every effort to humanize Mr. Khadr, always calling him Omar. All the while, the lawyer has taken great care to avoid violating Guantanamo's stringent secrecy regulations.
However, his relationship with the media has drawn sharp criticism from the government prosecution team running Mr. Khadr's case. Prosecution lawyers have brought up their complaints in court, and one, Captain Keith Petty, recently wrote an article describing the defence's relationship with reporters as a hug fest.
But if anything, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has only intensified his public-relations barrage. Characterizing his approach, he says there are only so many Canadians who care about any one part of the case. For those interested in whether Mr. Khadr threw the grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a 2002 Afghan firefight, the lawyer presents evidence to suggest he didn't (ironically, the most significant piece of evidence in that regard a report showing Mr. Khadr was not the only fighter alive when the grenade was thrown was not released by the lawyer, but accidentally disclosed to reporters during a court proceeding last February). For those who care whether Mr. Khadr is a radical, he presents documents showing U.S. and Canadian officials describing him as a good kid.
I understand that different segments of the public are going to pick up on different themes, he says. And to me that just militates in favour of getting out as much information as possible.
SEEKING JUSTICEWhen Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler sits in the long, brand-new Guantanamo Bay courtroom, he removes and adjusts his glasses with a frequency that borders on obsessive. His mannerisms contrast those of his adversary, prosecution lawyer Major Jeff Groharing a Marine, built like an upside-down triangle, who reporters have nicknamed Kevin Bacon after the actor who played the prosecutor in the movie A Few Good Men.
Although Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler takes the same tone in court that he does in his public appearances that of someone reading a legally binding agreement it is clear he doesn't like being there. Time and again, he has told anyone who'll listen that Mr. Khadr's only hope is for Ottawa to intervene.
But having maintained a much-criticized position of non-involvement while Mr. Khadr's Guantanamo Bay legal process is ongoing, the Conservative government seems inclined to keep its hands off until Mr. Khadr's trial begins in mid-October and eventually comes to a close.
Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler says a prison sentence served in Canada would be nominally better than one served in the U.S., but he insists that whatever happens to Mr. Khadr should be rehabilitative in nature, and shouldn't be decided by a military commission.
What Omar needs is a fair process, he says. That's not Guantanamo.
