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Thu Jul 17, 4:38 PM

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By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - A former Canadian diplomat whose cloak of obscurity has been ripped away by new insights into the treatment of Omar Khadr said Thursday he feels somewhat demonized for his fact-finding visits to the controversial Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

In an interview from Ottawa, Jim Gould was adamant neither he nor anyone else at the Department of Foreign Affairs ever requested, endorsed or acquiesced to American abuse of the teenager.

"We certainly never would have asked them to do anything to him," Gould said. "That's appalling. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I thought that was the case."

Gould is one of the very few Canadians who have seen the Toronto-born Khadr since his capture by U.S. forces after a four-hour firefight in Afghanistan six years ago when he was just 15.

Now 21, Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed an American medic, and is to be tried before a U.S. military commission in October.

"I've had sympathy with the kid since I first went down," Gould said.

"I was very aware of the fact that in Canada he probably would be a young offender, marginally responsible for what he was doing."

Gould visited Khadr twice at Guantanamo Bay - once in February of 2003 and again in April 2004.

It was the only way to glean first-hand information about the teenager's mental and physical condition and had no intelligence purpose, he said.

"We (the department) thought we were on the side of the angels. We wanted to look at the kid, find out what he's like, what we should do for him."

On the first visit, Gould was present at Khadr's interrogation over four days by an agent for Canada's spy service who can only be identified as Greg.

Video of the interrogation, released under court order on Tuesday, sparked some ugly accusations against the Canadian officials.

For example, Gould can be seen at one point adjusting the air conditioner in Khadr's cell.

"This is now being described as torture because we were changing the temperatures - making it freezing cold or burning hot," he said.

"Well, we were uncomfortable or the kid was uncomfortable. That was what that was."

Newly released information also shows the Americans put Khadr on the widely criticized "frequent flyer plan" - waking the prisoner every three hours and moving him to a different cell - to soften him up for interrogation.

Gould noted that only occurred more than a year after the videotaped interrogation and said he only found out about the treatment just before going in to see Khadr for the second visit that lasted a few hours in 2004.

In any event, he said, the tactic was "stupid" and ineffective.

"He was not sleepy, he was not drowsy; he was happy as a little clam; he was having fun with me; he was playing with me," said Gould, 63, who retired shortly after his second visit.

Khadr never showed any obvious signs of mistreatment, so it was reasonable to assume the Americans were treating their captive well, he said.

"We thought at that time that he was going through an acceptable process - not a happy process, not one one we liked. It wasn't until later that the revelations, the stories, started to come out."

Gould said when he learned other western countries were pressing for their detainees to be returned, he thought Canada should do the same.

It's never been clear whether the U.S. government would have even entertained a request to send him back, he said, given that Khadr is accused of killing an American.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has insisted Khadr should be tried by the U.S. military before any decisions are made about bringing him back to Canada.

Gould said that was a purely political decision.

"Sometimes you really can't understand why (politicians) are doing things."