Guantánamo ex-inmate Omar Khadr is a child offender, Canada high court rules

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/14/canada-guantanamo-omar-khadr-child-offender

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Canada’s high court has rejected Ottawa’s bid to treat former Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, who was just 15 when he was captured on an Afghan battlefield, as an adult criminal.

The government had brought the legal challenge to prevent Khadr’s transfer from a Canadian federal penitentiary to a more comfortable provincial correctional facility for petty criminals and young offenders.

Related: Canada frees Omar Khadr, once Guantánamo Bay's youngest inmate

The supreme court decision on Thursday is now moot since Khadr was released on bail last week.

Khadr was repatriated to Canada in September 2012, after spending 10 years in the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba following his arrest in Afghanistan as a teenager in 2002.

He was sentenced to eight years in 2010 following a military hearing in which he agreed to plead guilty to murder in violation of the laws of war, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

The murder charge related to a grenade attack that killed a US soldier. Khadr is appealing the conviction in the US.

In the meantime, Ottawa has resisted labelling Khadr a child offender, saying it was an attempt to lessen his punishment and get him out of prison sooner. Young offenders are given shorter sentences than adult criminals under Canadian law.

But the high court found that Khadr’s eight-year sentence was below the minimum for an adult sentence, and so he must be considered a child offender.