A look at boy's life behind Gitmo's bars

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, by Michelle Shephard. Copyright ? 2008 by Michelle Shephard.

BOOK COVER: "Guantanamo's Child, The Untold Story of Omar Khadr," by Michelle Shephard

• Slide show | Child Soldiers
• Lawyers call detention of boy unjust
• Pentagon spurns offer to explain

Omar arrived like the others, stumbling out of the cargo plane after a twenty-seven-hour journey, disoriented and only able to take baby steps while chained in leg irons and handcuffs that were attached to a metal belt, a restraint known as the ``three-piece suit.''

Omar became Internee Serial Number -- or ISN -- 766. His ''in-process weight'' was recorded as 155 pounds, his height, 70 centimeters, or five-foot-seven. The blast of Cuban heat in late October was likely Omar's first welcome to his new home. He got another greeting when he was taken to the detainee hospital for assessment. ''Welcome to Israel,'' someone said.

Omar had turned 16 while in custody in Afghanistan, and that would change how he was treated. It's believed there were more than a dozen prisoners under the age of 16 who were brought to Guantánamo, including three Afghans between between the ages of 12 and 15, whose detention sparked international outrage and led to their release.

Those boys were held in a separate seaside cabin known as Camp Iguana. They were allowed to watch videos, including Castaway, the Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Hanks about life stranded on a tropical island. Naqib Ullah was only 12 when he was captured and had never seen a television set before. He left Guantánamo with an American football and a letter from the military saying he was innocent. Omar had turned 16 just 39 days before arriving at Guantánamo, so in compliance with a post-9/11 Pentagon policy regarding detainees, he was treated as an adult from the day he arrived.

Army Chaplain James Yee recalled being surprised when he first saw Omar, with his scraggly wisps of facial hair, held among the heavily bearded adult detainees. ''He definitely seemed out of place in the general population,'' Yee said.

Yee was a 35-year-old West Point graduate with a spotless military record, a wife, a young daughter and a solid reputation when he went to Guantánamo in November 2002. An American whose parents had emigrated to the United States from China, Yee had converted to Islam after graduating from the military academy at West Point in 1990. He traveled to Damascus to study Arabic before returning to become one of only a handful of Muslim army chaplains. After 9/11, his services were in high demand. But after 10 months at Guantánamo, everything would change. In September 2003, he was arrested at an airport in Jacksonville and charged with terrorism offenses, ruining what he hoped would be his first visit home since being deployed to Guantánamo. The Pentagon alleged that Yee had smuggled classified information and letters written by the detainees out of Guantánamo. If convicted of aiding the enemy, he faced the death penalty. Yee spent 76 days in isolation in a military brig in Charleston, S.C., while the allegations against him made headlines worldwide. The charges were eventually dismissed for lack of evidence, and Yee retired from the army a broken man.

When Yee first arrived at Guantánamo, full of hope and patriotism, he spent much of his day walking the corridors of the prison speaking to the detainees who sought counseling. One day, Yee stopped outside Omar's cell. Two things surprised him as he bent down to talk to the teenager. Omar could speak perfect English, which was uncommon in the blocks. He was also reading a book that had pictures of Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck that Yee knew wasn't one the library stocked. Omar told Yee the book was a gift from one of his interrogators.

He expected Omar to be insulted but instead he appeared delighted.

When Yee came again to the teenager's cell later that day, Omar was curled up asleep on his steel cot clutching the Disney book to his chest.

THE INTERROGATIONS

Editors note: Later in Chapter 5, the writer describes Khadr's interrogation experience, as relayed by other Guantánamo prisoners who have since been released.

Detainees who knew Omar said he spent many of his early days at Guantánamo in its interrogation booths. Guards would arrive at all hours and tell him he had a ''reservation,'' which was code for interrogation. Omar would later allege that his interrogations were physically and mentally abusive. If his accounts are accurate, he appears to have had the whole Fort Huachuca playbook tried on him -- with some improvisation.

One day during Ramadan in the late fall of 2003, Omar was taken into an interrogation booth to meet a man who called himself Izmarai, he would later claim. The interrogator said he was from the government in Afghanistan, but on his pants he sported a little American flag. He spoke mainly Farsi, Pashto and some English, and asked questions with words from each. Omar was told that if he did not cooperate, he would be sent to Afghanistan, where ''they like small boys.'' Before Izmarai left, frustrated by Omar's responses, he wrote in Pashto on a piece of paper: ``This detainee must be transferred to Bagram.''

During another interrogation that year, Omar said he was threatened with rendition to Egypt, and, again, the threat of sexual violence was explicit. The interrogator spit in his face and pulled Omar's hair when he would not answer. In Egypt, the interviewers would not be so nice, he was told. He was also told he would meet Askri raqm tisa, Soldier Number 9, the guard who raped uncooperative prisoners.

One evening in March 2003, Omar was taken from his cell and in no mood to cooperate. The guards left him in the interrogation booth for hours, short-shackled with his ankles and wrists bound together and secured to a bolt on the floor. Unable to move, he eventually urinated and was left in a pool of urine on the floor.

When the MPs returned and found the soiled teenager, they poured pine oil cleaner on Omar's chest and the floor. Keeping him short-shackled, the guards used Omar as a human mop to clean up the mess. Omar was returned to his cell, and for two days the guards refused to give him fresh clothes.

Ruhal Ahmed's cell was directly beside Omar's for most of 2003, and he became a surrogate older brother to him. Ahmed would watch the teenager return from interrogations, saddened both by the times Omar returned smiling and those when it was clear he was disturbed. ''Sometimes he'd be happy because some of the interrogators would treat him nicely,'' Ahmed recalled. 'Sometimes he'd come back and he'd talk, `Oh they gave me this, they gave me that, and this, I watched this film.' Sometimes he'd come back and he wouldn't be talking and we'd know, okay, we shouldn't ask him anything. It was quite difficult to ask somebody what happened to you. We'd just ask, 'Are you all right?' He'd say, 'Yeah, I'm fine.' ''

But then Omar would retreat to the back of his cell, put a blanket over his head and sob quietly.

PASSING THE TIME

Editors Note: Later in Chapter 5, the writer describes how for a time Khadr was kept with adult, English-speaking detainees who befriended him in chats between their cells. They included three British citizens captured in Afghanistan and since released, known as the Tipton Three.

During his early months at Guantánamo, Omar was still recovering from his injuries and would spend days in the prison hospital. He would often get one of the best rooms, adjacent to the nursing station and separate from other wounded or ill prisoners.

Chaplain Yee went to the hospital every day and looked forward to his visits since it was the only facility that had reliable air conditioning. Oftentimes, he would sit beside Omar's hospital bed and talk, but sometimes he would sit and say nothing. Omar was in pain most of the time and did not seek Yee's spiritual guidance. Despite some awkward silences, though, they seemed to draw comfort from each other.

Omar was well-liked by others at Camp Three, whose population in 2003 included the Tipton Three, David Hicks and some other Western prisoners. Omar seemed to prefer the company of the English-speaking prisoners with whom he could talk about the movies and cartoons some of the interrogators let him watch. Ahmed spent hours telling Omar every scene and twist of every movie he could recall -- including Braveheart, Die Hard and Harry Potter, which was a favorite among the prisoners. There was camaraderie among the detainees at Camp Three, which Omar would miss when he was put in isolation.

Nothing bonded the prisoners more than their abuse of unpopular guards. Part of their arsenal was ''cocktails'' -- a combination of feces, urine and sometimes semen. As the guards passed their cells, detainees would throw the concoction through the bars. One guard received a mouthful as he leaned down to talk to a detainee through the bean hole, the slot where food was passed, and the prisoners screamed wildly.

Ahmed recalled the day an MP (Military Police officer) who was especially despised was called into a cell to unclog a toilet that had been jammed with sheets. Omar, Ahmed and the other prisoners of Camp Three each watched through the bars as the MP donned elbow-high black gloves. As he pulled the sheet out of the toilet, the detainees began to chant in English, ''Plunger, Plunger, Plunger.'' It grew louder, ''PLUNGER, PLUNGER, PLUNGER,'' as they banged on the bars until even the other guards were snickering and repeating the MP's new nickname.

From that day on, both guards and detainees took great pleasure yelling, ''Plunger, Plunger, Plunger,'' as the MP walked the blocks. The taunting took its toll. The MP ran from the blocks one day, never to return. One of the guards told Ahmed that Plunger had sought counseling from the Combat Stress Team, a group of psychologists who worked out of Building 3206 inside the residential military area called Camp America. ''Walk-in consultations and triage, brief solution-focused therapy, crisis intervention, roommate contracting, anger management, command consultation, suicide awareness and prevention'' was how they advertised their services in a base newsletter.

Although the Western detainees in Camp Three were considered to be the most valuable and dangerous captives, all but Omar have been released.

EMOTIONAL ISOLATION

Editor's Note: Chapter 5 concludes with Khadr learning some family news -- not from his grandparents in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, but from the prison camp grapevine.

News had a strange way of traveling through Guantánamo. Detainees were ingenious at spreading information from one cellblock to the next, even though they were not supposed to communicate and their movements were restricted. There were times at which the guards themselves would spread news such as the capture of a high-ranking al Qaeda figure. There was much celebration among the soldiers after Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had been found, even though his capture meant little to detainees from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the fall of 2003, there was one story that everyone talked about. Omar's father had been killed. The guards told the detainees that Ahmed Said Khadr had been part of bin Laden's inner circle and had been killed by Pakistani forces on Oct. 3. Omar said little. ''He used to hide his emotions away from people,'' recalled Ahmed. ``You can just imagine a 16-year-old kid if something happens. They don't usually share their emotions, they just kind of keep it inside them, and when they do show their emotions it's usually to their moms or whatever, not going to be some stranger next door.''

If Omar had felt alone in Bagram, his father's death only intensified this sense of isolation. He wrote often to his grandparents in Scarborough, the only address he had for his relatives, signing his name with a little heart in the corner. ''I pray for you very much,'' he wrote in one letter, ``don't forgat me from your pray'rs.''

Reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from "Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr," by Michelle Shephard. Copyright ? 2008 by Michelle Shephard.

'Being voted unsexiest woman alive hurt so much', says Sarah Jessica Parker as she cries all the way to the bank

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And being voted "unsexiest woman alive" was a hard pill to swallow.

But in real life actress Sarah Jessica Parker hasn't gone home totally empty-handed, having raked in an estimated £12.5m since the end of the popular TV series.

She has earned more than her three co-stars combined thanks to a series of lucrative advertising deals.

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The unsexiest woman on the planet? Readers of Maxim magazine have awarded the unflattering title to Sex And The City star Sarah Jessica Parker

With the highest profile of the four Sex and the City actresses and an established film career she has been a magnet for advertisers.

But Parker, 43, has had a hard time dealing with the news that men do not find her as attractive as advertisers do, claiming the result of the Maxim poll was "brutal" and also affected her husband, actor Matthew Broderick.

Parker told Grazia: "Do I have big fake boobs, Botox and big lips? No.

"Do I fit some ideals and standards of some men writing in a men's magazine? Maybe not.

"Am I really the unsexiest women in the world? Wow!It's kind of shocking when men...

"It's so brutal in a way, so filled with rage and anger.

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At least Sarah Jessica can find consolation in her millions, strong marriage to Matthew Broderick and A-list career

"It upset him (Broderick), because it has to do with his judgement too. It's condemnation, it's insane. What can I do?

"I guess you can't please all people."

Parker can take comfort in the bank balance though, safe in the knowledge that she is financially miles ahead of her SATC co-stars.

The others, Kim Cattrall, Kristen Davies and Cynthia Nixon have all earned millions, but trail behind Parker's cash pulling power.

All four reunited last year to film a big screen version of the popular series in New York.

According to a U.S. magazine Parker's deals began while she was completing the last series of the show in 2004.

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Ahead of the game: Sarah Jessica earns more than her SATC co-stars combined (From left: Kristen Davies, Sarah Jessica, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall)

She had multi million pound deals with clothing firm Gap and cosmetic firm Garnier.

Parker also picked up an estimated £3.5m to design her own range of clothes for U.S. label Steve and Barry.

She was also paid over £3m to appear in six Hollywood films since 2004, including The Family Stone and Failure to Launch.

Liverpool born Cattrall,51, who played man-eater Samantha in the 94 episodes of the series, has earned close to £5m since 2004.

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Unsexy? Sarah Jessica smoulders in this recent photo shoot in New York with Sex And The City co-star Chris Noth (Mr Big) for Vogue

U.S. lifestyle magazine Portfolio said her biggest pay day was to be the spokeswoman for Liz Claiborne perfume Spark Seduction.

She was also paid £325,000 to promote low calorie rum and £150,000 for a Tetley tea advert shown on British TV.

Davis,43, has earned £2.25m since leaving her role as Charlotte.

She became the spokeswoman for cosmetic line Maybelline and appeared in advertising campaigns for 7Up drink and a Weatherproof clothing.

Dixon, 42,who played lawyer Miranda, made £500,000 for appearing in the 7Upadvert with Davis and a similar amount for three cable TV films.

Sarah Jessica's husband Matthew Broderick was upset over criticism of his wife

• The Sex and the City film opens in May 2008.

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