Tortured Evangelist Supernaturally Escapes High-Security Chinese Prison by Simply Walking Out

Author: Paul Steven Ghiringhelli

Charisma

 Brother Yun (Vimeo/Back to Jerusalem)

Liu Zhenying fell to the floor convulsing, his frail body coursing with electricity. Prison guards, electric-shock batons in hand, stepped back unashamedly as he lost consciousness.

Inside Nanyang Prison, located in China's Henan Province, 25-year-old Liu was beginning the 75th day of his fast from both food and water. Although he was 5 feet 5 inches, he weighed less than 70 pounds and had to be carried to a room where officials had arranged for his family to see him. The Public Security Bureau (PSB), China's secret police, was hoping Liu's wife and mother would convince him to renounce his "superstitious" beliefs and reveal the identities and locations of his unregistered house-church contacts.

When Liu regained consciousness, his head was in his mother's lap. She was sobbing. His young wife and sister peered at him in horror. He was an unsightly pile of skin and bones, covered in crusty blood and filth. His ears were shriveled like raisins, and portions of his scalp were exposed because the prison guards had ripped his hair out.

Only a birthmark convinced Liu's mother that the man she was holding was her son. Soon they were all crying. Liu broke his fast by sharing communion with his family. Then he cried, "I will see you all in heaven!"

That was April 7, 1984. Liu believed he would soon die for the Lord in that prison, but God had other plans. He was released four years later but imprisoned and tortured twice more before escaping China in 1997.

Today, Liu Zhenying, 49, is known to Christians around the world as Brother Yun (pronounced "Yoon"), a name Chinese believers gave him to protect his identity. Thousands have been inspired by his account of supernatural intervention and miraculous survival, which he detailed in his autobiography, The Heavenly Man (Piquant Editions and Monarch Books).

Co-authored by Paul Hattaway, the book has been translated into 33 languages and has sold more than 800,000 copies. In 2003, it won the United Kingdom's Christian Booksellers' Book of the Year Award.

But more than being a testimony of one man's spiritual journey, The Heavenly Man offers a glimpse inside the Chinese underground house-church movement, a Christian community that is poised to reach the world with the gospel.

China's Christian Awakening

Although the numbers vary, observers estimate between 100 million and 130 million Christians live in China, an indication that nearly 10 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people may be believers.

Protestant missionary work to South Asia began exactly 200 years ago when Robert Morrison landed in Macao in 1807. The Scottish missionary eventually translated the Bible into Chinese from his base in the coastal city of Guangzhou. Later, missionaries such as Hudson Taylor, who founded the China Inland Mission in 1865, carried the gospel into interior provinces such as Henan.

There were roughly 1 million Christians living in China when Mao Zedong's community army took over in 1949. But Mao's regime looked to turn back the tide. "The first thing Mao did was expel all missionaries, throw pastors in prison or labor camps where most of them died, destroy church buildings and burn Bibles," Yun says. "By the 1970s, it was said the only Bibles left in China were in history museums in Beijing."

Yet when Mao's bloody Cultural Revolution ended with his death in 1976, an underground Christian movement erupted. It was around this time that a proselytizing 17-year-old Yun first became a wanted criminal in China, having led 2,000 people to Christ in his native Henan Province during his first year as a Christian.

He says his zeal came from his mother, a poor and backslidden woman who, while caring for her cancer-stricken husband and near suicide herself, tearfully turned back to God one night in 1974. The prodigal gathered her five children (Yun was the fourth of five) and told them Jesus would save them. They prayed all night for their father, and he was healed. Yun says God then told him to be His witness "to the south and the west."

The young evangelist continued to preach despite the constant threat of arrest. Even after Mao's brutal reign ended, Chinese authorities continued to persecute Christians. In 1983 after a secret house-church meeting in a village, PSB officers arrested Yun.

As he was being kicked and dragged through the snow, Yun feigned insanity to warn other believers to run, shouting, "I am a heavenly man! I live in Gospel Village! My father's name is Abundant Blessing! My mother's name is Faith, Hope and Love!"

One of several Christians to be arrested that night, Yun spent four years in Nanyang Prison. There he rejected numerous enticements to join the government-sanctioned Three-Self Church, as do most Christians in China. Members of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement or the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association face legal restrictions on core Christian practices, including evangelism, youth outreach and home groups.

Because Yun refused to conform, prison officials resorted to beatings and electric shocks in an attempt to penetrate his house-church connections. "They wanted me to reveal names of co-workers and meeting places," Yun told Charisma. "With thick needles they squeezed acids under my nails, and I fainted from the pain. I woke up and told them nothing."

Unlike many Western teachers who equate Christianity with comfort and abundance, Yun preaches a gospel that emphasizes suffering and ruin. He sees affliction as a way to commune with God.

"I did not really suffer for Jesus while in prison—I was with Jesus," he writes in his book. "The ones who really suffer are those who never experience God's presence."

Revivalist Rolland Baker—who with his wife, Heidi, ministers among the poorest of Africa—says Yun's life is one "so totally captured by [Jesus] that no imaginable hardship or persecution can stop him from being more than a conqueror."

Yun says there was a time when he allowed ministry "to become an idol." After being released from Nanyang Prison in 1988, Yun says he temporarily lost sight of God and became overzealous and obstinate. He ministered around China at a breakneck pace, ignoring his wife's pleas to slow down.

Yun later admitted that he had forgotten his "first love." Of his second imprisonment in 1991, he says, "The Lord graciously allowed me to rest in Him behind bars."

Released in 1993, Yun says he soon developed a burden to see unity among China's house churches, a passion he shared with his mentor, Peter Xu Yongze, who at that time led China's large house church, the Born Again Movement.

The unity movement, later named Sinim Fellowship, spread so quickly that by early 1997 word of it reached the office of high-level communist officials in Beijing. Subsequently, the PSB raided a clandestine Sinim meeting in Henan's provincial capital of Zhengzhou.

Trying to avoid arrest, Yun leaped from the second-floor window but fractured his leg. He was met on the ground by the PSB, who beat him and issued electric shocked. Sharing a wall between their cells, Yun and Xu, who also was arrested during the raid, were tortured for several days at Zhengzhou's Number One Maximum Security Prison. Yun's legs were beaten with clubs to rule out an escape attempt.

Yun says torture taught him an important lesson: "Even though God did not speak a word to me, no matter how much I cried; even though God didn't immediately set me free from the pain and terror; I have come to understand that He was there."

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After six weeks on the prison's third floor, Brother Yun believed God wanted him to escape. So on the morning of May 5, 1997, after his wife in a vision that morning told him to "open the iron door" and after Zu whispered to him that the time had come, Yun asked the guard for permission to use the bathroom.

Although he barely could stand on his battered legs, when the iron door opened, Yun says he suddenly was able to walk on his own, which he did, right past the first guard. On the stairwell he says he grabbed a broom to pretend he was tidying up the place, then proceeded past the second guard, who looked straight through him. Praying with every step, Yun says he reached ground level and found the third iron door open as well. Stepping onto the courtyard and into broad daylight, Yun thought he would be shot in the back at any moment.

But amazingly, when he reached the prison's main gate, it was open too. He walked onto the busy Zhengzhou streets and a taxi pulled up. The driver asked, "Where to?"

Yun later learned that no one had ever escaped from Zhengzhou Prison.

There is much more on this story at Charisma

Dutch Father Who Held 6 Children Underground for 9 Years was Creating own CULT

‘Weird rituals & fantasy language’: 

The father of six children who spent nine years in a farmhouse basement was a former Moonie “trying to create a cult of his own” and has been arrested for holding his brainwashed offspring against their will, Dutch media reported.

Gerrit-Jan van Dorsten, the bedridden patriarch of the basement-dwelling clan, is the second person to be arrested over the shocking discovery of the six adult siblings living in a farmhouse cellar in Drenthe province.

He and a friend, both former members of the Unification Church – commonly known as “Moonies” after its founder, Sun Myung Moon – were reportedly trying to start their own brainwashing cult. Josef Brunner, whom neighbors had believed to be the farmhouse’s sole occupant, was taken into custody earlier this week after the oldest son in the family escaped and raised the alarm about their plight.

The two men were trying to start their own cult, according to Unification Church members who spoke to Dutch media. After van Dorsten left the group, he moved to Germany and they “lost sight of him” – but rumor was that he’d set up a group of his own “with his family.”

The six adult van Dorsten children were moved to a holiday park after their basement prison – accessible only through a secret passage behind a kitchen cupboard – was discovered. But their cult rituals, including walking circles every half-hour, disturbed other guests, forcing authorities to move them elsewhere. The 25-year-old son who sought help from the pub owner has been moved to a separate location from his siblings, some of whom had been reduced to communicating in a "fantasy language" because of their isolation, authorities said.

Van Dorsten has been charged with “depriving people of their liberty, harming the health of others and money laundering,” police said in a statement on Thursday.

Authorities found tens of thousands of euros piled up at the farmhouse, believed to be donations from the Moonies. The sect confirmed van Dorsten was a member on Friday in a statement that noted he “suffered from mental health problems” and left in 1987. It claimed to have no records of Brunner’s involvement. A cousin of van Dorsten's still with the group claimed those mental health problems were what got him kicked out of the cult in the first place.

“At some point he got certain ideas in his head. Crazy ideas… He started talking and discussing that, but they immediately said, ‘no, we don’t want anything to do with it.’ At one point our church said: we cannot go any further with you,” he told Dutch outlet Algemeen Dagblad. 

Apparently, it wasn't unanimous as it appears some were still supporting him for years.

Van Dorsten’s family had not heard from him in decades and feared he was dead when he did not attend his mother’s funeral.

Authorities are still investigating whether “a certain religion or philosophy” played a role in the family’s nine-year isolation, during which none of the children attended school or apparently understood there were other people in the world. Even the house’s owner said she had no idea there was anyone living there – least of all a cult “waiting for the end times.”

Now that's bizarre!

Bizarre Story of Apparent Abduction and Imprisonment for 9 years of Dutch Family

Dutch family found living in cellar for 9 YEARS waiting for ‘end of days’

& unaware other people still existed

The farmhouse where the family was found © Ruptly

A family of six has been rescued from the hidden cellar of a Dutch farmhouse after the eldest son escaped and wandered into a local pub to seek help. They had lived in total isolation for nine years, ‘waiting for the end of time.’

Police descended upon the isolated farmhouse in Ruinerwold, Netherlands after the son, now 25, escaped on Sunday night and ran to a nearby pub for help. Explaining he had left at night because it was “not possible during the day,” the man – dirty, unkempt and confused, according to the pub owner – said he lived on the farm with his brothers and sisters and that he “wanted to end the way they were living.”

The children and a bedridden man, initially believed to be their father, had lived concealed in the basement of the farmhouse for nine years, waiting for the "end of time," according to Dutch media. One Josef B., 58, a handyman who was previously the only known tenant of the house, was arrested at the scene for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. 

The siblings lived in the basement of the house, which was only accessible through a hidden staircase behind a cupboard in the living room, and were reportedly unaware there were other people in the world. The house itself was isolated by a canal, accessible by a single bridge, and secured by a locked gate. Neighbors who tried to investigate found that the property was dotted with surveillance cameras. 

According to the eldest sibling, the children had never been to school, and they were not registered by any local authorities. The family was believed to be self-sufficient, with a vegetable plot and livestock to sustain them. Their mother is thought to have died before the family moved to the farmhouse – “a long time ago,” according to the mayor – though some reports suggest she is buried on the property.

The only one seen off the property was Josef B., whom neighbors witnessed driving in and out of the farm daily. He would also watch with binoculars to ward off intruders, neighbors reported.

Police are still investigating how the family lived for so long in isolation and the exact nature of the relationship between Josef B. and the family. The siblings have been removed from the home.

There can be no doubt that the children were uneducated and horribly deceived, thus mentally and emotionally abused. I wonder what other kind of abuse they might have been subjected to.

Report: North Korea Continues to Punish Religious Practice

By Yonhap News Agency   

Tourists use binoculars to see North Korea from the Goseong Unification Observatory in the the demilitarized zone in Gangwon-do, South Korea. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

SEOUL, South Korea, (UPI) -- The North Korean government continued to punish those engaging in religious practices last year, with executions, torture and other abuse, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report Tuesday.

In the 2016 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, the department reconfirmed human rights abuses the North has long been accused of, including its denial of the right to religious freedom.

"The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests," the report said. "An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions."

Last year's report pointedly said the exercise of religious freedom continued to be nearly "nonexistent" in North Korea. But that word was dropped this year.

The report comes as tensions run high between Washington and Pyongyang over the communist regime's missile and nuclear programs.

North Korea releases Canadian pastor held since 2015:

state news agency

CTVNews.ca Staff 

Aug 9, 2017

After languishing for more than two years in a North Korean prison, a Canadian pastor was released Wednesday, according to the country’s state news agency.

Hyeon Soo Lim, 62, a pastor with the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ont., had travelled to North Korea more than a hundred times, leading humanitarian programs and even opening an orphanage. But during his last trip in 2015, he was detained and charged with attempting to overthrow North Korea’s regime using religion.

In what is believed to be a coerced statement, Lim soon admitted to the crimes after being sentenced to hard labour for life.

In this file image made from July 30, 2015, video, Canadian Hyeon Soo Lim speaks in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo)

“There were rumours that he was affiliated with the uncle that Kim Jong Un had executed a few years back, and that was partly the reason for his incarceration," Jack Kim, a senior advisor with HanVoice, a Canada-based human rights organization that assists North Korean refugees, recently told CTV News.

Then, two years and dozens of delicate diplomatic communications later, a Canadian delegation led by Daniel Jean, a national security advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, travelled to Pyongyang this week to discuss Lim’s case in person.

"Pastor Lim’s health and well-being remain of utmost importance to the Government of Canada, and we are working to ensure that he receives any required medical attention," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

That delegation was pivotal towards securing Lim’s release, Ontario MPP Raymond Cho said.

“It is important that Kim Jong Un got the representatives from Canada, so we saved his face,” Cho, who is Korean-Canadian, told CTV News. “It is a very good gesture.”

Since being imprisoned, Lim’s health was reportedly failing. He suffers from high blood pressure and allegedly lost nearly 40 kilograms while incarcerated.

According to North Korea’s news agency, Lim was released on “sick bail.”

Many Canadians Presume Omar Khadr Guilty, But the Evidence Tells a Different Story

A Former Prosecutor Asks:

What if Omar Khadr Isn’t Guilty?

By Sandy Garossino in Opinion, Politics

Omar Khadr (right) speaks with his lawyer Dennis Edney in Edmonton on May 7, 2015.

File photo by The Canadian Press

Editor's Note: This story contains images some readers may find disturbing.

The controversy surrounding Omar Khadr’s reported $10.5-million settlement for Ottawa's complicity in his oppressive detention at Guantanamo Bay obscures a key issue we've never truly explored in Canada.

What if Khadr was innocent of the murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer this whole time, and we didn't lift a finger while he sat in a hell-hole for a decade?

For almost 15 years, Canadian treatment of the Khadr case has been dominated by the presumption of guilt. Yet the evidence tells a different story.

For all the fury boiling up over news of his settlement, there's precious little insight or knowledge about the facts. As a former prosecutor, something has always troubled me about this case, and my deep unease hasn't abated with time.

Any experienced trial lawyer would be troubled to open this file. With the exception of Khadr's "confession," wrung from a traumatized and severely wounded teenager under an abusive interrogation, the evidence against him was remarkably thin.

Examined closely, it appears more consistent with his innocence than guilt.

Khadr's case a 'Canadian tragedy'

What evidence exists appears confused, inconsistent or contradicted elsewhere. Photographs of the attack scene released in 2009 appear to directly conflict with the prosecution's summary of its own case.

Had the events happened under Canadian jurisdiction, they would not have been enough to lay a charge, let alone secure a conviction.

This case represents a Canadian tragedy and failure of moral courage on the part of our government. When Canada should have championed transparency, due process and the rule of law in the Khadr proceedings, we stood mute or actively participated in his abusive interrogation in custody.

Had the Canadian government done so, any criminal trial in open court would most likely have ended in a humiliating defeat for the U.S. government, and public perception would be very different from what it is today.

To any trial lawyer, it's plain that Khadr pled guilty for a very simple reason: his plea deal offered a return to Canada and eventual freedom — clearly a better alternative than a lifetime of suffering in Guantanamo.

That bargain was a successful legal maneuver, but a personal tragedy. It was successful because it returned him to Canada, where his prospects for justice were a vast improvement on Guantanamo Bay and U.S. military tribunals. It was tragic because he will forever wear the stain of pleading guilty to murder.

Today Canadians are paying a hefty price because successive Liberal and Conservative governments sacrificed principle to political expedience, traded away due process, and turned on their own child citizen, a trapped and helpless teenager.

Evaluating the evidence from the prosecution's perspective

Here’s how a prosecutor would look at the evidence against Khadr in a civilian criminal trial. Remember, this was a criminal prosecution subject to evidentiary rules supposedly designed not only to protect the innocent, but the integrity of the justice system itself.

The first step is to ensure the prosecution can prove each element of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the evidence is probative, consistent, credible, and reliable.

Any obvious defences, such as mistake of identity, self-defence, temporary loss of control or accident, should be anticipated and closed off by cogent evidence before charges are laid.

One more thing: in a circumstantial case, (which this was, because nobody saw Khadr throw the grenade that killed Speer), the evidentiary bar is even higher. In such a case the test is not merely proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but that the evidence pointing to guilt is inconsistent with any other rational conclusion.

First the context. This firefight was no small village confrontation, but an all-out military assault on a small compound.

The suspected Al Qaeda compound was identified by U.S. and Afghan forces in the early morning of July 27, 2002. Two Afghan militia members approached the small compound, estimated at "100 to 120 feet square." They were immediately shot and killed by occupants inside.

Compound bombed and strafed by U.S. air assault for hours

That shooting drew an overwhelming response. More than 100 U.S. troops assembled on the site, and for the next four hours the compound was pounded with cannon, missile, and rocket fire from a coordinated air assault involving Apache helicopters, A-10 warplanes and F-18 fighter jets. Multiple 500-lb. bombs were dropped on the site.

When American forces believed everyone inside had been killed, a U.S. Special Forces team entered the compound.

Whatever happened next took less than a minute, according to reports. At the end of it, Sgt. Christopher Speer, who was not wearing a helmet, was mortally wounded in the head from a grenade, and Khadr was captured alive.

So what was the prosecution’s case against Omar Khadr?

Inconsistent and inaccurate statements from the prosecution

There was lots to choose from. The U.S. military reports and filed statements describe a hodge-podge of confusing and inconsistent positions, including the following range of scenarios:

(1) The assault team entered, encountered and returned enemy fire and killed the shooter. Omar Khadr, positioned behind a crumbling wall, then threw a grenade at a group of soldiers who were talking. He did not consider them a threat to his safety, but just planned to kill as many Americans as he could (U.S. government stipulation of facts, 2010, paragraphs 41-43, agreed to by Khadr in his guilty plea);

(2) The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire, including a thrown grenade. They shot and captured Khadr, who was the only survivor in the compound during the exchange. Being the only survivor, Khadr must have killed Speer (false public position of U.S. military until 2008, as per CBC report);

(3) The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire, including a thrown grenade. They killed the shooter who also threw the grenade. They then captured Khadr, who did not throw the grenade (Report by Maj. Randy Watt, senior U.S. officer at battle, July 28, 2002);

(4) The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire and a witness identified as OC-1 saw a grenade thrown over a wall. Because of the timing of the shooting and grenade, he did not believe one person could have done both. OC-1 killed the shooter. He then found Khadr seated and facing away from the assault team and shot him in the back. According to OC-1, Khadr was the only person who could have killed Speer (Statement by witness OC-1, dated March 17, 2004, almost two years after the event);

(5) The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire and saw a grenade thrown over a wall. They killed the shooter and two Delta Force members confronted Khadr, who was armed and stood facing them. They shot him in the chest (per summary of statements, originally reported by Michelle Shephard in the Toronto Star);

(6) The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire and saw a grenade thrown over a wall. Soldiers outside the compound were also throwing grenades in response to the firefight. U.S. forces first killed the shooter, then shot and captured Khadr (per Los Angeles Times report of statement evidence). This opens the possibility that friendly fire accidentally killed Speer.

OR

(7) The photos:

The photo on the left, taken in Ayub Kheyl in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002, shows the scene found by the assault team approaching the area where the shooter was killed. Khadr lies beneath the rubble, apparently beneath a collapsed roof. The photo on the right shows Khadr (figure highlighted) after debris has been pulled back. Classified photos obtained by the Toronto Star from an 18-page submission presented in 2009 by Khadr's former military defence team to an Obama administration task force investigating Guantanamo.

Clearly, the multiple positions and reports advanced by the prosecution can't all be true. In all, either the shooter, or Khadr, or possibly American forces threw the grenade that killed Speer. Some of the reports make no sense at all, and some are clearly false.

Consistency, credibility and reliability are essential to a strong prosecution, and this case was on thin ice.

Photo evidence disastrous for the prosecution

Then came the photographs of the combat scene obtained by the Toronto Star in 2009, which can only be seen as disastrous for the prosecution.

The two photos above apparently depict the scene as found by the assault team in the area where the shooter was killed. The first photo on the left shows the body of the shooter killed in the firefight next to what appears to be a pile of rubble and brush. Omar Khadr was found alive beneath that rubble.

According to the Star, military documents indicate that "a soldier stood on top of Khadr's body before realizing someone was buried."

The second photo on the right—enhanced by the Star for clarity—shows the brush and rubble pulled back to expose Khadr, with bullet entry wounds clearly visible on his back.

In the third photo below, which shows Khadr receiving battlefield first aid (the graphic damage of his exit wounds are obscured), clearly visible is the dried blood from the shrapnel wound to his left eye. Khadr's face is coated in dirt, consistent with being buried in rubble.

Khadr receives battlefield first aid after being injured during a fight in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan on July 27, 2002. Graphic exit wounds have been obscured. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, originally obtained by Toronto Star

Khadr could not have thrown the grenade and then completely buried himself under rocks and debris in just a few seconds before the special forces team arrived.

Of all the positions taken by the prosecution above, only (3) and (6) are consistent with the photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the firefight. Neither version implicates Khadr. Version (3) is the incident report submitted by the senior officer on site the day after the battle, which completely exonerates him.

The only evidence that ties Khadr to the grenade is the statement of OC-1 in version (4), given to investigators almost two years after the event. But OC-1's statement that he found Khadr sitting up and leaning against brush is sharply at variance with photograph 1, in which Khadr lies completely buried under rocks and brush.

That's not a small problem for the prosecution. It's a big one.

If the photograph is an accurate depiction of the scene as the special forces team found it, OC-1's statement can't be true. It's more likely that OC-1 discovered Khadr under the rubble after he shot the other combatant, then shot him in the back as he lay there.

The fact that a soldier could shoot a man in the back at close range and not kill him leads one to believe that either that soldier is a really bad shot, or perhaps, he was shooting what he could not see. If Khadr was covered with debris and OC-1 stepped on him and Khadr moved, it is likely that OC-1 would have shot first into the debris and asked questions later.

It gets worse. The prosecution's bigger problem is that its official version (1) makes no sense at all when read with the photographs. Below is the relevant text of the U.S. government's stipulation of facts:

A screenshot of the U.S. government's stipulation of facts in October 2010 regarding the events that led to Sgt. Christopher Speer's death in Afghanistan in 2002, as accepted by Omar Khadr

Clearly, paragraphs 42 and 43 are drafted to defeat any argument that Khadr threw the grenade in self-defence. It's drafted to cast him as the aggressor who, unprovoked, attacked a peaceful group of soldiers clearing up a battle site after a firefight with the other combatant. But that is wholly inconsistent with a photo of Khadr buried in rocks and rubble, lying within inches of his dead compatriot.

Unless the shooter's body had been moved, Khadr was lying under the debris immediately next to him during the firefight. According to OC-1, he shot both the shooter and Khadr within a few seconds of each other.

This doesn't make sense either. Khadr didn't watch his compatriot get killed, throw a grenade, then cover himself in rocks and sticks and wait to be discovered. And what about the Star's account of military documents reporting that a soldier didn't even realize Khadr was there until he stood on him?

Military evidence makes a better case for innocence than guilt

So far, this is all the prosecution's own evidence, and it's a mess before the defence calls a single witness. Without Khadr's confession, obtained essentially by force, there is no compelling evidence that he threw any grenade at all. No one saw him do it, and from all appearances he'd been under that rubble the entire time.

From what’s publicly available at this point, the evidence pointing to guilt is weak and speculative. Taken as a whole, it doesn't really make sense. Multiple statements contradict each other and run all over the map.

These are not small inconsistencies. Something is seriously wrong with the prosecution's account.

Without Khadr's confession, the evidence fails its first and most basic test: that of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt through credible, reliable and consistent evidence that Khadr threw the grenade that struck and killed Sgt. Speer.

So what about that confession?

As is well known today, false confessions are common, especially with malleable young people under duress. The intensity and abusiveness of Khadr's interrogation is unprecedented in law-abiding countries. It's probably fair to say that in 2002 the U.S. military was far more concerned with learning whatever it could about Al Qaeda from Khadr than with getting an admissible voluntary statement for a criminal trial.

The priority was to find and kill Osama bin Laden, and to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

That interrogators went too far is now common knowledge. But the problem with torturous or abusive questioning isn't just that it violates the prisoner's rights, but that subjects will give false information to escape the agony.

Today, Khadr says that he confessed to false things just to please his interrogators and stop the pain, and there's evidence to back that up. For instance, we know that under pressure Khadr falsely identified Maher Arar as having stayed at terrorist safe houses in Afghanistan, when Arar had never been to the country.

I believe this occurred in Bagram where torture was likely to have been more severe.

It's far more believable that Khadr confessed to stop the pain than that his confession is true. The photographs and the known chronology make it extremely unlikely that he could have thrown the grenade.

Yet without that confession, the prosecution had no case.

First, freshest and best military report points to innocence

The U.S. military’s first, freshest and probably best report of the incident, based on contemporaneous eye-witness accounts by the soldiers involved, was submitted by Maj. Randy Watt the day after the firefight. That report described scenario (2), in which it was believed that the grenade was thrown by the shooter.

It's also consistent with and corroborated by the photographs taken at the scene, where only the shooter would have been in a position to throw the grenade.

However, according to the CBC (at 15:30 in the video), that report was itself subsequently altered without documentation or explanation.

That first report, which contains the best evidence exonerating Khadr, remains today the most coherent account of the events of that day.

Even if it could be established that Khadr did throw the grenade in the middle of a firefight, given his proximity to the shooter it's impossible to rule out self-defence. The stipulation of facts cannot be true.

After all these years and coverage, it's plain that any competent defence lawyer could run a Mack truck through this case in a conventional criminal court.

It was Canada's job to raise hell about the railroading of a Canadian teen

Know who else should have run a Mack truck through it? The Canadian government.

It was Canada’s job to raise hell about the railroading of a Canadian teen based on a lousy case. It was Canada's job to raise hell about the torture of a Canadian kid in U.S. custody. Instead, we presumed he was guilty.

Successive Liberal and Conservative governments washed their hands of Khadr, only to aid and abet his Kafka-esque ordeal and trial by torture. Precious few stood up to take his side as he was convicted in the court of public opinion without a trial.

We were happy—eager, in fact—to strip him of his rights, judge him without even looking at the facts, and allow the American military and politicians to malign him mercilessly as they took every step to suppress the truth.

And though many reporters distinguished themselves, there was no shortage of media commentators piling on, sneering at the doubters and skeptics as do-gooding sissies.

The American torture program was a disaster. Extraordinary rendition to torture sites was a disaster. Guantanamo is a continuing disaster.

Instead of playing along as America’s trusty lapdog, the Canadian government should have stood squarely on the side of due process, demanding an accounting of the staggering cruelty and appalling ineptitude (or worse) behind this whole affair.

At every turn we should have called for a full, fair, open and transparent proceeding. We should have challenged the bad faith, the secrecy, the doctored reports, the contradictory witnesses, the changing stories, and the procedural bullying.

We should have demanded Khadr’s immediate return to Canada from Guantanamo, pending a full investigation.

If you still think the U.S. wouldn't fudge its reports to get the result it wants, google 'Pat Tillman.' Then consider whether the biggest clue to this whole mystery is the long suppression of reports that American soldiers in the special forces assault team also threw grenades during the firefight.

We had plenty of notice how this would all end, because we've been here before with Maher Arar. The day after Khadr, compelled by fear and abuse, falsely pegged Arar as an Al Qaeda associate, U.S. authorities spirited him to Syria by extraordinary rendition, where he too was tortured and imprisoned for a year.

That lesson cost us a cool $10.5 million in foreshadowing, but didn't teach us a thing. We turned around and did it again. To a kid.

Khadr was left virtually alone and helpless to fight the awesome force of American power from a cell in Guantanamo. He should have had the full weight of the Canadian government behind him pushing for the truth.

Plea deal bought freedom at a high price

Khadr's guilty plea bought his freedom, but at a heavy price. For that freedom Khadr traded, perhaps forever, the chance to clear his name and turn public scrutiny on those who abused him, who doctored records, who changed their stories.

As part of his plea deal, Khadr agreed to a statement of facts admitting to killing Sgt. Speer, and promised never to seek forensic review of the evidence which might one day prove his innocence. He also agreed to permit the U.S. government to destroy all evidence following sentencing.

As a teenager Omar Khadr was betrayed and exploited by every adult who owed him a duty of care, including his father who conscripted him into a terrorist group, and his mother who let it happen. Then he was abandoned by the one government that should have protected his right to a fair trial.

Khadr's ticket out of Guantanamo should never have been a guilty plea extracted by torture, fear and despair. Every other western country was getting its citizens out, while Canada let a teenager rot there.

Khadr's passport out should have been the birthright he was born with—his Canadian citizenship.

Turkey Protest: Istanbul Rally Concludes Anti-Erdogan March

From BBC Europe 

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Istanbul at the end of a 450km (280-mile) protest march against the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Huge crowds have joined the "justice" march since it began in the capital Ankara on 15 June.

They are demonstrating against the mass dismissals and imprisonments that followed last year's failed coup.

President Erdogan has accused the marchers of supporting terrorism.

He said the Republican People's Party (CHP) - which has organised the march - had gone beyond political opposition and was "acting with terrorist organisations and the forces inciting them against our country".

Consequently, Erdogan now has justification (in his own mind) to arrest every single one of those in the protest march.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu launched the march after one of his MPs, Enis Berberoglu, was arrested for allegedly leaking documents purporting to show that the government was arming jihadists in Syria.

Mr Berberoglu denies the charge. Sunday's rally is taking place in an area close to the jail in which he is being held.

More than 50,000 people have been arrested and 140,000 dismissed or suspended since last year's attempted military takeover.

The detentions of human rights activists and leading journalists have drawn international condemnation.

Mr Kilicdaroglu, who began the march and has walked around 20km a day, says the purges and emergency rule by Mr Erdogan constitute a "second coup".

The failed coup last July saw rogue soldiers bombing government buildings and driving tanks into civilians, killing more than 260.

The BBC's Mark Lowen in Istanbul says the march has become an unprecedented show of defiance against the President Erdogan.

There is a widespread feeling that the government has seized the chance to crush all opponents, not just alleged coup supporters, our correspondent adds.

Erdogan has also used the coup to greatly increase his power and authority - big steps on his way to becoming Caliph.

Canada Gives Omar Khadr $8m Compensation and Canadians Don't Like It

I'm going to shock some of my followers who know me to be conservative and Christian and come out on the side of the teen 'terrorist' Omar Khadr. Khadr is not being rewarded, he is being compensated for the 13 years of military imprisonment and torture he endured, all of which was against Canadian and international law.

Perhaps you think it is OK to torture children? Perhaps you think 14 and 15 y/o children are responsible for the situations in which they find themselves? You would have fit right in with the Rotherham police, social services and council. For decades they watched young British girls get sexually, physically, emotionally abused, even tortured by Pakistani adult men and did nothing. 

In 16 years in that city which is considerably smaller than Abbotsford, B.C., 1400 young British girls were groomed, given drugs, alcohol, raped, gang-raped, and beaten while the police, social services and council turned a blind eye. Why did they turn a blind eye? Two reasons: 1) They didn't want to be seen as racist; 2) they told themselves that 11, 12, 13, 14 y/o girls were responsible for their own circumstances. They decided that little children were choosing to be gang-raped, kidnapped, beaten, and trafficked.

Omar Khadr had no more choice to be in the situation he was in than any of those 1400 young British girls. To hold him completely responsible and reject his remarkable confession and apology (which is not something you will ever get from a jihadist), puts us beneath him in dignity. 

The Conservative Party, The Canadian Taxpayers Foundation, and many of my friends are, unfortunately, on the wrong side of this issue.

A guard watches over detainees in Camp IV in Camp Delta at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on July 8, 2010. Omar Khadr, captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15, spent several years in detention at Guantanamo Bay. File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI | License Photo

UPI -- The Canadian government will give $8 million and an apology to a citizen accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for abuses he endured while detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2002, U.S. special forces captured Khadr after a firefight with al-Qaida forces in southeast Afganistan. Khadr is suspected of throwing a grenade that killed Special Forces Sgt. Christopher Speer and injuring Sgt. Layne Morris.

A Canadian court ruled that because Omar Khadr was 15 years old at the time of the firefight, he should have been protected by Canada under international child soldier laws. Instead, the government conspired with the U.S. to convict and imprison Khadr. While in U.S. detention, Khadr was subjected to emotional and physical abuse, including beatings, threats of rape and being hogtied until he urinated on himself.

In all, Khadr spent 13 years in U.S. military detention before he was released in Canada on probation in May 2015.

How he survived that without being an extremely bitter young man, I cannot imagine. But he is not, and it is obvious.

Due to Khadr's age and international laws meant to protect child soldiers from normal war crime prosecutions, his case has drawn criticism.

In 2008, the United Nations Children's Fund said charging Khadr for war crimes, "in particular in front of a military commission not equipped to meet the required standards, would set a dangerous precedent for the protection of hundreds of thousands of children who find themselves unwittingly involved in conflict around the world," the agency said in a statement.

Morris, who lost vision in one eye from the grenade attack and has since retired form the military, spoke out against Khadr's release in 2015.

"This is a man who has demonstrated a willingness and a capability to do great harm to Canadian society and Western interests in general," he said at the time.

He was 15 years old, doing what his powerful father trained him to do. In a firefight, he was probably just trying to survive. There is a big difference here between terrorism and a military battle.

Khadr was raised in a militant family in Toronto, taught bombmaking and marksmanship by his father before the age of 12 and sent to Afghanistan to fight the U.S. military with his father and brothers when he was 14.

Now 30, he has expresses remorse for his actions in the war between al-Qaida and the United States.

"I'm sorry for the pain I've caused for the families of the victims," he told reporters after his 2015 release. "There's nothing I can do about the past but I can do something about the future."

Statement by the Conservative Party of Canada:

Meet Canada’s newest multi-millionaire – Omar Khadr.

Yes, that Omar Khadr – the admitted Al-Qaida terrorist who murdered US Army medic Christopher Speer with a grenade.

Can it be called murder in the midst of a firefight? 

The same Omar Khadr who’s on video building improvised explosive devices exactly like the ones that killed and maimed countless serving Canadians.

When he was 14!

Now Justin Trudeau is reportedly giving this convicted terrorist a $10 million compensation package – and apologising to him.

Omar Khadr took the life of a husband and a father, and now the Liberal government wants to reward him with tens of millions of your dollars.

The language here is inflammatory and absurd. I despise the Liberal government as many of my blog-posts will attest, but in their defence, they are not rewarding Khadr for killing a husband and father. They are compensating him of 13 years of imprisonment and torture in a military prison, which was sanctified, if not participated in, by Canadian intelligence personnel.

Khadr is only alive today because of the medical treatment he received from US forces after killing one of their comrades, and now, thanks to Justin Trudeau, he will be one of the wealthiest men in Canada.

This is wrong.

Admitting to working with the same terrorist organisation that killed Canadians on September 11th doesn’t deserve an official apology from the Government of Canada.

More hyperbole and absurdity. The apology is for Canadian complicity in military detention and torture. 

Killing our allies doesn’t deserve a $10 million pay day courtesy of the taxpayers of Canada.

Will you just stop! This is not worthy of a government-in-waiting? It's like something you would hear on Fox radio. Mr. Scheer, please don't take us down that road!