Khadr’s return to Canada angers injured U.S. soldier
Release from Guantanamo a ‘horrific security risk’ blamed on White House
TORONTO — The transfer of Omar Khadr to Canada from Guantanamo Bay has infuriated a former U.S. soldier partly blinded in the firefight in which the badly wounded Canadian teen was captured.
The move has also prompted about 400 Canadians to donate $30,000 so far for the family of the U.S. soldier Khadr pleaded guilty to killing during the July 2002 battle in Afghanistan.
In an interview, former sergeant Layne Morris denounced Khadr, 26, as a “horrific security risk,” and blasted the U.S. government.
“My frustration is with the Obama administration and their continued refusal to accept the will of the American people: that these most dangerous of the most dangerous detainees be kept in Guantanamo Bay,” Morris said from West Valley, Utah, where he is deputy city manager.
“I don’t think (Khadr) is done with radical Islam. I don’t think he’s done with the jihad.”
Morris, 50, was hit by shrapnel and lost the sight in one eye during the attack on the compound in which Khadr, then 15, was found near death in the rubble and Delta Force soldier, Sgt. Chris Speer, was left mortally wounded.
In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty before a military commission to five war crimes, including murder for throwing the grenade that killed Speer. In return, he was given a further eight years behind bars but allowed to return to Canada last Saturday to serve out the sentence. Morris’s anger is palpable. “This is a young man that despite 10 years in Guantanamo and every attempt and opportunity to educate himself and prepare himself for life in a western society has done nothing,” said Morris, who found out from a Canadian reporter the transfer had taken place.
“He went in with an eightgrade education, he’s come out with an eighth-grade education. Other than memorize the Qur’an and be regarded as the ‘rock star’ of Guantanamo by the other inmates, all he’s done is prepare himself for further jihad.”
Many of those who have worked closely with Khadr over the years — U.S. soldiers, mental-health experts and a succession of defence lawyers — paint a very different picture — of someone smart and gentle who desperately wants to get on with a “normal” life and has been trying to upgrade his education.
For several years now, Khadr has been studying a curriculum developed for him by King’s University College in Edmonton.
Arlette Zinck, an English professor at the school, called Khadr a diligent student.
“He’s worked hard in some pretty unusual and taxing circumstances (and) continues to show lots of aptitude,” Zinck said.