Gitmo detainee transferred
Omar Khadr of Canada was last Westerner at the prison
TORONTO — The last Western detainee held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay returned to Canada on Saturday and was transferred to a maximum security prison where he awaits parole, a Canadian official said Saturday.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Omar Khadr, 26, arrived at a Canadian military base on a U.S. government plane early Saturday and was transferred to the Millhaven maximum security prison in Bath, Ontario.
The son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and was eligi- ble to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal. Canada’s conservative government took almost a year to approve the transfer.
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the transfer and said 166 detainees remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Khadr was 15 when he was captured in 2002 in Afghanistan, and has spent a decade at the prison set up on the U.S. naval base in Cuba to hold suspected terrorists. He received an eight-year sentence in 2010 after being convicted of throwing a grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer in 2002.
“His head is spinning a bit and it’s going to be a real adjustment for him, but at the same time he is so happy to be home,” said John Norris, Khadr’s Canadian lawyer.
Norris said Khadr would be eligible for parole as early as the summer of 2013.
“Omar Khadr
is a known supporter of the alQaida terrorist network and a convicted terrorist,” Toews said. He called for “robust conditions of supervision” if Khadr is granted parole.
Toews said in his decision that he reviewed all the files forwarded by the U.S. government and that the parole board should consider his concerns that Omar “idealizes” his father and “appears to deny Ahmed Khadr’s lengthy history of terrorist action and association with alQaida.”
Defense attorneys have said Khadr was pushed into fighting the Americans in Afghanistan by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed off on Khadr’s transfer in April. Panetta said in Ottawa earlier this year that sending Khadr back to Canada would be an important step because it would serve as an example to other detainees who are looking to return to their home countries. Some Guantanamo detainees have been reluctant to agree to plea deals after noting that Khadr had remained in Guantanamo despite being eligible to leave since October.