Australia is furious that one of its kangaroo skinners faces a kangaroo court at Guantanamo Bay.

Canada is silent as one of its black lambs is led to the same fate.

Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, and Australian citizen Terry Hicks are among three men facing terrorist charges at the U.S. military’s internationally condemned “Gitmo” prison camp.

Under new U.S. Pentagon rules, the trials will allow hearsay and evidence obtained under coercion, and prevent defence lawyers from seeing “classified” evidence.

Khadr and Hicks were picked up in Afghanistan in 2002 as “enemy combatants”

for Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida/Taliban network.

Khadr was 15 at the time and has spent more than four years at Gitmo, most of that time without being charged, frequently in isolation, treated shabbily, and denied access to his Canadian lawyers.

The 31-year-old Australian is a former kangaroo skinner with a respectable father from Adelaide.

Hicks’ impending trial has created big noise in that country, with almost half the Australian Parliament signing a petition to the U.S. Congress last week demanding Hicks be sent home for trial or moved to a “properly constituted” court.

Khadr, now 20, comes from a notorious Canadian family whose now-slain father was an ally of bin Laden’s, raising his children to be martyrs for jihad.

Khadr’s impending trial has caused barely a sparrow’s peep in this country.

The peep came in the form of an open letter last week from six ex-foreign affairs ministers, ranging from Tory Joe Clark to Liberal John Manley, urging Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to lobby the White House to close Gitmo and “release detainees immediately, unless they are to be charged and tried” under “recognized” justice standards.

Harper and not quite all of the Canadian media ignored the plea. In Canada, the kid from a bad family is not seen as worth rattling “warm relations”

with the George W. Bush regime.

Canada’s Parliament stands mute, watching senior U.S. military defence lawyers — aghast at the court’s mandate — carry the torch for Khadr’s right to a fair trial.

His appointed lawyer, Lt.-Col. Colby Vokey, told the press last week that “for a boy who was 15 when he was captured and who has been held by the U.S.

for almost five years, it’s ridiculous to charge him.

“You’ve got to just get him home to Canada now.”

Vokey, who has lodged a military complaint about abuse at Gitmo, says “the visitation rules and restrictions on my ability to communicate with Omar have been ridiculous.”

The new Pentagon rules follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of previous Gitmo trial plans as unconstitutional.

U.S. Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Pentagon’s chief defence counsel, has described the rules as “carefully crafted to ensure than an accused can be convicted — and possibly executed — based on nothing but a coerced confession.”

Canadian legal observers note that post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws passed here in 2001 make activity in terrorist groups in Canada or abroad a criminal offence.

Khadr could be tried here. Instead, as Clark and Manley write, “the Canadian government has been notably silent on the matter,” other than Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay claiming the U.S. has given “assurances” of “humanitarian standards” at Gitmo.

The U.S. also gave us assurances on Maher Arar after sending him to Syria to be tortured.

Shame on Canada, the once-great defender of human rights.

Voice mail: 604-605-2094;

E-mail: jmcnulty@png.canwest.com

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