January 19, 2009: At Pre-Military Commission Hearing, FBI Agent Says One Canadian Detainee Identified Another

Robert Fuller, an FBI agent who interrogated Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr at Bagram Air Base in 2002 (see October 7-22, 2002), testifies about the interrogation at a Guantanamo hearing. The hearing was requested by Khadr’s defence team, to have self-incriminating statements Khadr made during interrogations suppressed ahead of proceedings before a military commission. Fuller says that, during the interrogation, Khadr told him he recognised a man named Maher Arar from a safe house run by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and also possibly from a terror training camp. “He identified him by name,” Fuller says. [CBC News, 1/20/2009; Canwest News Service, 1/20/2009] However, cross-examination by the defense the next day will raise several issues that cast doubt on the identification (see January 20, 2009).