Omar Khadr, convicted GITMO terrorist, is returned to Canada by the US

by Jerry Gordon, New English Review

In the dead of night, convicted GITMO detainee, Canadian al Qaeda fighter Omar Khadr was flown back to Canada by the US and immediately clapped into a Federal Canadian prison, with the likelihood of parole within a year to walk freely on the streets of Toronto.  We have posted on the saga of former child warrior for al Qaeda Omar Khadr who killed his American Special Forces medic SFC Christopher Speer at the battle for the Al Qaeda bastion at Khost Afghanistan in July 2002. He was captured and treated for his injuries at the Bagram Air base medical facility. (See: “Omar Khadr’s Hail Mary (Allah) Pass at GITMO Tribunal” April 2011)   He was then sent to Guantanamo at the age of 15 to spend eight years in detention until his military tribunal and conviction for the murder of Speers in October 2010. 

The  US State Department cut a deal with the Foreign Ministry of Canadian PM Harper to have his sentence of 40 years at his GITMO  military tribunal upheld by the convening authority commuted to eight years, with one to be completed at GITMO, with the remaining term spent at a Federal Canadian facility. Now 26, Khadr is back in Canada.

The Harper Government didn’t want him back, but alleged human rights advocates, his family and the liberal media and counsel in Canada have made Khadr out to be a victimized child warrior who is now reformed.  Others, like GITMO prosecution expert witness, renowned forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Welner, Chairman of the Forensic Panel who examined him extensively considered him a potential terrorist recidivist. Watch this Sun TV Ezra Levant discussion of the Khadr case with Dr. Welner that we had posted in June 2012, “Welcome Back Khadr- An Interview with Dr. Michael Welner”?

Note what David B. Harris, former Canadian Intelligence and Security Service official and noted Canadian counterterrorism expert said during our interview with him when we questioned him about the Khadr affair:
Gordon:  Why did the Harper Government negotiate a return of the Canadian Afghan terrorist Omar Khadr to Canada with the U.S. Department of State, despite his conviction at Guantanamo Bay?
Harris:  Mr. Omar Khadr is a gentleman who, through his own guilty plea in the U.S. judicial context, was found to have killed an American serviceman in Afghanistan. This was only one of the young Mr. Khadr’s distinctions. Some others derived from the fact that he was a member of what is generally referred to as the Al Qaeda first family of terrorism in Canada. His father had been a notorious Al Qaeda supporter who operated in South Asia. Then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien negotiated the latter’s release from detention in the Indo-Pakistan region. Such, I suppose, is the nature of ethno-religious politics these days that Mr. Chretien is said to have followed up this coup by racing off to report the niceties of the release plans to the wife of the senior Mr. Khadr. To make a long story short, Mr. Khadr ultimately seems to have returned to his hobbies and was later shot down in South Asia along with one of his other sons who was rendered paralized as a result of that gun fight.
The public declarations made by certain surviving Khadr family members have been similarly unprepossessing, the mother – inevitably bound up in a black burqua hiding all but a pair of raging eyes – having made clear she regards Canada and Canadians as all but enemies, and that the main attraction of this country is the free health care that was made available to the paralyzed young Mr. Khadr when he came back.
In the meantime, we have Omar Khadr, whose transfer to Canada has been under negotiation. It is not unusual to find Canadian criminal convicts in the United States return to Canada to serve some or all of their sentences. However, one of the disturbing considerations in this particular situation, especially given the animus reserved by a great many Canadians for the currently imprisoned Omar Khadr, is the suggestion that the Canadian government may be bowing to pressure from the Obama White House to repatriate Khadr. According to various reports, the White House is desperately interested in reducing the number of people currently being held at Guantanamo. It is supposed that this pressure from the Obama Administration is politically motivated and stems from Mr. Obama’s preoccupation with the approaching November elections. It remains to be seen what the details of any transfer agreement might amount to.
Here is the Toronto Sun’s report on Khadr’s report to Canada:
Khadr landed at CFB Trenton military base Saturday morning after being transported from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, aboard a U.S. government plane and was then brought to Millhaven maximum-security prison in Bath, Ont.
In a hastily organized news conference in Winnipeg, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Khadr is now in the hands of Canada’s correctional services, which he is satisfied it 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.”
The 26-year-old Toronto-native struck a plea deal in 2010 that saw him sentenced to eight years in prison for five war crimes, including killing U.S. special forces medic Christopher Speer 10 years ago in an Afghan firefight.
He was captured in 2002 when he was 15.
Despite green-lighting the repatriation, Toews expressed several concerns about the case to the media Saturday.
These included that Khadr has “had very little contact with Canadian society and therefore will require substantial management in order to ensure safe reintegration” and that he has “participated in terrorist training, military operations, and meetings involving al-Qaida leadership.”
Brydie Bethell, one of Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, said her client is relieved to be back on Canadian soil, and described him as being “in a state of disbelief and really pinching himself wondering when he’s going to wake up from this dream.”
“This is someone the correctional authorities will think is a miracle. He’s the kind of prisoner they hope everyone would be,” she added.
His advocates — many who maintain he was a child soldier at the time of his capture — were cheering his return Saturday.
They included Amnesty International Canada and the federal New Democrats and Liberals — though the Grits didn’t push for his repatriation when they were in power before 2006.
Ottawa could be on the hook for multi-million dollar payout after the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 Khadr’s charter rights were violated during his time in U.S. custody.
Harris’s comments about President Obama’s desire to close the GITMO detention facility are prescient, given the  recently published list of   55 detainees, many of whom will likely return to terrorist activities, 31 others would be sent to third countries, leaving 167 detainees.
Sic ignominy transit US counter-terrorism under the Obama Administration.
September 30, 2012 | 6 Comments »

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6 Comments / 6 Comments

  1. Canada grants Russians a look at military bases

    http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/25/canada-grants-russians-a-look-at-military-bases

    O Canada!
    Canada Allows Russia to Make Surveillance Flyovers

    “Canada granted Russia the right to fly over Canada and check out their military bases.
    They will take full advantage of that.

    Canada, too much fluoride in your water has softened your brain.
    The USA is not the only nation that has stopped standing up for itself, stopped really defending itself.
    It is spreading all over as nation after nation loses its mind and slides down into insanity”.

  2. Laura:

    Of course they’ll sue the government. Scum like him have already made millions by this means already. Par for the course. We protested in Toronto against his return, I wrote letters to Vic Toews (I just wrote an angry letter to Irwin Cotler, who fought zealously for his return), but all to no avail. Now this sick jihadist, anti-Semitic bastard is back in my country.

  4. King’s University College (a Christian “college”) is welcoming him back, and they’re anxious to have him attend their school. (No doubt to obtain hands-on al-Qaeda style “training”. As far as I’m concerned, the Christians should be deported to Pakistan (it’d be like a real life episode of “survivor”.)

  5. Ottawa could be on the hook for multi-million dollar payout after the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 Khadr’s charter rights were violated during his time in U.S. custody.

    Unbelievable. The west is insane. This jihadist should have been executed. Instead we are aiding and abetting the jihad being waged against us. Why?

    Harris’s comments about President Obama’s desire to close the GITMO detention facility are prescient, given the recently published list of 55 detainees, many of whom will likely return to terrorist activities, 31 others would be sent to third countries, leaving 167 detainees.

    Sic ignominy transit US counter-terrorism under the Obama Administration.

    Why isn’t this all over the media?

  6. In the dead of the night is how our politicians prefer to do things, like cockroaches. I realize the pressure they were under but I am still against it. They are free health care mooches. Canadians do not realize that they are living in a world of flags and because they feel so far from the world’s hot spots, especially in the dead of a Canadian winter, Canadians are confused on a lot of international issues. But most are too busy and prefer to enjoy life than developing an opinion about things.

    They should because the muslim war is coming here. Most likely has already arrived and watching and watching…