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Tue Jul 15, 7:00 PM

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By Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

EDMONTON - Lawyers for Omar Khadr are hoping a jailhouse video showing the boy calling out in despair after interrogation by a Canadian security agent will swing public support behind the effort to bring their client back to Canada.

"All we can do is put the evidence that we received out before them and let (Canadians) rely on their own particular sense of conscience," said Dennis Edney. "Which one of us would wish our children to be treated as Omar Khadr?"

On Tuesday, Edney and Nathan Whitling made a carefully orchestrated release of more than seven hours of video taken in February 2003 during four days of interrogation at the American-run Guantanamo Bay holding facility in Cuba. A short 10-minute "highlights" package selected by the lawyers was released in the early morning hours in time for morning TV and radio newscasts. The full package was released later in the day.

The video - made public under Canadian court orders - shows the teenager swinging from hope to defiance and then despair. He pleads vainly to return to Canada.

He was just 15 when he was found in the rubble of a bombed-out compound, in Afghanistan, badly wounded and near death. Now 21, Khadr is accused by the United States of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier and will face trial before a military commission in October.

Edney said Canadians don't need to ask themselves at this point whether Khadr is guilty. They just need to decide if he deserves the full protection of Canadian law.

"We're hoping that the Canadian public will recognize that if you put aside any concerns of guilt or innocence - that's to be determined in a properly constituted court - and look at compassion ... this kid has suffered enough," he said.

"This kid is not a terrorist."

In the video, Khadr pulls his orange prison shirt over his head to show an unidentified agent of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service the wounds he received during the firefight that led to his detention at the isolated U.S. naval base-turned-prison.

He complains about medical treatment he has received. Eventually, left alone in the bare interrogation room, he holds his head in his hands and weeps.

What sounds like repeated sobs of "Help me" or "Kill me," is actually the Arabic phrase "Oh, mother," family members said after viewing the video.

"Very sad," said Khadr's sister, Zaynab Khadr. "He is my brother. And he is my baby brother for that."

In other scenes, Khadr munches fast-food hamburgers and sips a soda given to him by his interrogators. He's asked about friends, family and associates, but many of his responses are unintelligible.

Edney said Khadr's behaviour changed significantly over the four days.

"We think it's very clear that when the Canadians first showed up he's elated: 'Someone's coming to help me and I'll get some sort of process and perhaps I can go home.'

"But by the end of the day it became obvious to Omar that they were not going to help him and they were not interested in helping him."

Within hours of the video's release, it was posted on websites around the world. Edney said he has done interviews with media organizations from the BBC to al-Jazeera - some of them showing more sympathy to Khadr than his compatriots.

"(The BBC) say there's a great deal of sympathy for the Khadr matter," Edney said. "It may say something about the Canadian culture."

The video may change that, said Alain Roy of Amnesty International.

"The public and even government officials, through this video, see not the abstract illegal combatant that the U.S. government has made him to be, but as a real person. A child who was recruited as a soldier, a child who's frightened, who needs help.

"I think this will probably touch people differently than hearing about his case through documents."

Edney and Whitling, who are working pro bono, haven't seen their client in six weeks. Khadr doesn't even know the interrogation tapes have been released, they said.

Whitling said Khadr is not optimistic about his situation.

"I wouldn't say he's hopeful of much. He does seem to have a glimmer of hope in Canada - the Canadian people more so than the Canadian government."

Release of the video follows intelligence reports made public last week that showed Khadr was abused in the notorious prison. Among other things, he was subject to the "frequent flyer program" - a name given to a process in which prisoners are consistently deprived of sleep over three weeks to soften him up for interrogation.

Roy said the video reinforces Amnesty's belief that Khadr should be sent back to Canada.

"It prompts us to reiterate our call that he be repatriated to Canada immediately."

That call was echoed by Julia Hall at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

"Omar Khadr was abused and mistreated as a child in U.S. custody, and the Canadians knew full well," she said in a release.

"There is no such thing as a 'fair process' under such circumstances, and the Canadian government should admit that and demand Khadr's repatriation immediately."

After release of the video, Anne Howland, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, repeated the prime minister's statement that the Conservative government believes Khadr is in "a legal process that must continue."

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service reacted to the videos saying it "has a duty to investigate potential threats to the security of Canada and its interests.

"Omar Khadr was questioned by CSIS about individuals - including those linked to the al-Qaida organization - who may pose a threat to the security of Canada and its interests," the agency said in a news release late Tuesday afternoon.

"We will not comment further on the operational aspects regarding Omar Khadr's case."

A series of "talking points" from September 2006 to March 2007 released by the Department of Foreign Affairs to The Canadian Press under Access to Information legislation say U.S. authorities "continue to acknowledge their willingness to treat all detainees humanely."

"Canada condemns torture under all circumstances and has consistently called for all credible allegations of torture to be investigated and for suspected perpetrators to be brought to justice," the documents say.

"Canada takes the view that everyone has rights, including persons detained in Guantanamo Bay."

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae called Khadr a "child soldier" who should be brought back to Canada for treatment and rehabilitation.

Zaynab Khadr said she wasn't optimistic his situation would improve soon.

She noted another brother, Abdullah Khadr, now in prison in Canada awaiting extradition to the United States, was interrogated by Canadian agents despite having been abused in detention in Pakistan.

"He was tortured for their benefit and he still continues to be in jail and it hasn't changed much, so I can't expect it to be any different in Guantanamo."

- With files from Colin Perkel in Toronto