GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, May 2 (UPI) -- Plying a young Guantanamo Bay detainee from Canada with sweets helped make him pliable during interrogation, an interrogator identified as "Agent 11" says.
The Miami Herald reported Sunday the woman -- whose name was not reported -- testified Friday she gave Omar Khadr fig newtons and M&Ms, and that he happily attended interrogation sessions where he confessed to throwing a grenade at U.S. troops in Afghanistan. She said since he was so young -- he was 15 when apprehended -- she approached him as "a mother figure."
"He smiled a lot and was always willing to talk," the woman told court officers.
She said interrogators gave Khadr, who was born in the Toronto area, the idea he could return home to Canada if he cooperated.
Khadr wound up incarcerated in Guantanamo three months after he was wounded and captured during a 2002 battle between U.S. forces and suspected al-Qaida insurgents in Afghanistan.
His attorneys argue Khadr's confessions should be excluded from his upcoming trial because he was treated harshly early in his custody in Afghanistan.
Agent 11, who was a junior Navy officer at the time, said, however, the detainee never mentioned having been abused.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque was killed in the firefight in which Khadr was wounded, prompting authorities to try Khadr as a terrorist. Prosecutors have said they will seek life imprisonment if he is convicted.
