Guantanamo's last Western detainee returned to Canada

Saturday, September 29, 2012

In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, Canadian defendant Omar Khadr attends a hearing in the courthouse for the US military war crimes commission at the Camp Justice compound on Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba, April 28, 2010.

The youngest prisoner and last Westerner held in the Guantanamo military base, Omar Khadr, was sent to finish his sentence in his native Canada today, the Canadian government said.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Khadr, who was a 15-year-old fighting in Afghanistan when captured in 2002, had been flown from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a military base in Trenton, Ontario and transferred to the province's Millhaven maximum-security prison.

Khadr's case has been controversial both in Canada and abroad given his age when he was captured, the nature of his detention and hearing, and the reluctance of Canadian officials to accept his return.

"I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognizes the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration," Toews said in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A US war crimes tribunal in 2010 sentenced Khadr, now 26, to 40 years in prison, although he was expected to serve just a few more years under a deal that included his admission he was an al Qaeda conspirator who murdered a US soldier.

Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murdering American Army medic Christopher Speer with a grenade in a 2002 firefight, conspiring with al Qaeda to commit terrorist acts, making roadside bombs to target US troops in Afghanistan, spying on American military convoys and providing material support for terrorism.

Khadr was the first person since World War Two to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. He was the youngest prisoner still at Guantanamo, but younger boys were previously held there.

Canadian-born Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior al Qaeda member who apprenticed the boy to a group of bomb makers who opened fire when US troops came to their compound. Khadr was captured in the firefight, during which he was blinded in one eye and shot twice in the back.

Source: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/112861/guantanamos-last-western-detainee-returned-to-canada

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