Khadr wants to come to Toronto
Bail relief needed to visit family, also wants to take off his electronic ankle bracelet
Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr is asking a Canadian court to ease his bail conditions to allow him to fly to Toronto to visit his family, The Canadian Press has learned.
Among other things, Khadr also wants to be rid of his electronic monitoring bracelet, arguing it’s embarrassing and intrusive, and his curfew eased. “My release and reintegration into the community have been going great,” Khadr says in a supporting affidavit.
“I have not gotten into any trouble of any kind with the authorities.”
An Alberta judge granted Khadr bail May 7 pending his appeal in the U.S. against his 2010 conviction for war crimes, including the murder of an American special forces soldier, by a widely discredited military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
He was transferred to Canada in 2012 and remained incarcerated until winning bail and tasting freedom for the first time since his capture as a 15-year-old in Afghanistan in July 2002. However, bail came with stringent conditions — including that he live with his lawyer Dennis Edney in Edmonton and not leave Alberta — except to stay at Edney’s vacation home in B.C.
He was also required to communicate with his family — some of whom expressed pro-Al Qaeda views in the past — only in English and under the Edneys’ supervision. “I am now an adult, and I think independently,” Khadr, 29, says in the document.
Khadr’s maternal grandparents live in Toronto. He says his grandmother is ill and his grandfather barely speaks English. As a result, he says, he wants to be able to visit them and converse in another language without the Edneys present.
He also says he wants to see his mother, siblings and other relatives during a two-week visit to Toronto either this month or next.
There was no immediate word on the government’s response to Khadr’s application to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, which is expected to hear the matter Sept. 11 in Edmonton, according to legal filings.
However, the government has frequently denounced any attempt by Khadr to “lessen his punishment” for what it called “heinous crimes.” While Ottawa is appealing the fact he was granted bail, it has yet to request a date or file supporting documents.
Khadr says it’s time to take off his electronic ankle bracelet, which he calls uncomfortable.