U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday reveal that France’s Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, asked the U.S. to consider releasing Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay.

Kouchner, who played a founding role in the international humanitarian NGO Médecins sans frontières, personally asked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review Khadr’s case during a meeting in February 2009 (Campbell Clark,  France pressed U.S. on Khadr as Ottawa stood silent: WikiLeaks, Globe and Mail, 1 December 2010).

And apparently France wasn’t the only country seeking justice for Khadr. According to the Globe and Mail, other “leading figures in allied governments were pressing Washington over the case” as well.

Where was the Canadian government in all this? Steadfastly refusing to protect the rights of one of its own citizens to judicial due process, including, as a child soldier, to be treated as a victim of war rather than a war criminal.

U.S. State Department photo