{"id":206833,"date":"2019-03-26T02:02:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T06:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=206833"},"modified":"2019-03-26T02:29:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T06:29:56","slug":"im-really-happy-edmonton-judge-rules-omar-khadrs-sentence-has-expired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/26\/im-really-happy-edmonton-judge-rules-omar-khadrs-sentence-has-expired\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m really happy:’ Edmonton judge rules Omar Khadr’s sentence has expired"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EDMONTON \u2014 The last legal restrictions on Omar Khadr were\nlifted Monday when an Alberta judge ruled that a war crimes sentence for the\nformer Guantanamo Bay prisoner has expired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
FILE: Undated family photo of Omar Khadr, who is being detained by U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay. The military judge presiding at Khadr’s war crimes tribunal dismissed all the charges against the young Canadian on June 4, 2007. The judge said he did not have jurisdiction to try Khadr under a new 2006 law authorizing tribunals at Guantanamo for foreign terrorism suspects. Khadr did not meet the exact definition of those eligible for trial, as written in the law. REUTERS\/Handout\/Files. (Photo By Khadr family – Khadr family, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m really happy with the decision today,\u201d Khadr said\noutside Edmonton’s courthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s been a while, but I’m happy it’s here. Right now I’m\njust going to focus on recovering and not worrying about having to go back to\nprison or just struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling means Khadr can apply for a passport as well as\ntravel and visit freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s nothing further for him to serve,\u201d said his lawyer\nNathan Whitling. \u201cWe don’t anticipate any further legal proceedings in the\nmatter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr was sentenced to eight years in 2010 by a American\nmilitary court for alleged acts committed in Afghanistan when he was 15 years\nold. That sentence \u2014 which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled\nwould be a youth sentence \u2014 would have ended last October had Khadr remained in\ncustody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the clock stopped ticking when a judge freed him on bail\nin 2015 pending Khadr’s appeal of his military conviction in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Mary Moreau ruled that\nthe youth crimes legislation allowed her to consider time he spent on bail as\npart of his sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bail order must be considered in context,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI order that Mr. Khadr be placed under a conditional\nsentence for one day, which I consider to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faint sobs from Khadr’s supporters could be heard in court\nafter Moreau’s judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr has appealed the U.S. sentence. His lawyers say the\nmilitary commission that issued it has been widely discredited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whitling had argued that the appeal hasn’t moved forward at\nall and it would be unfair to hold that against his client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers for the Crown wanted Khadr to serve some time on\nconditional release in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr is also the defendant in a civil lawsuit by the family\nof the soldier he is alleged to have killed. A U.S. court has already ruled in\nfavour of the family, who are trying to have the $134-million judgment served\nagainst Khadr in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr spent years in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay after\nhe was captured and accused of tossing a grenade that killed special forces\nsoldier Christopher Speer at a militant compound in Afghanistan in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since he was released on bail, Khadr has lived in Edmonton\nand Red Deer, Alta., without incident. The court had eased some of his initial\nbail conditions, but several had remained. Moreau’s ruling on Monday lifts\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr could not have access to a Canadian passport and was\nbanned from unsupervised communication with his sister, who lives in the former\nSoviet republic of Georgia. He also had to notify his bail supervisor before\nleaving Alberta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khadr’s case has ignited divisive debate among Canadians\nover terrorism, human rights and the rule of law since it was revealed in 2017\nthat the federal government settled a lawsuit filed by him for a reported $10.5\nmillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The payout followed a 2010 ruling by Canada’s Supreme\nCourt that Khadr’s charter rights were violated at Guantanamo and that Canadian\nofficials contributed to that violation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 The last legal restrictions on Omar Khadr were lifted Monday when an Alberta judge ruled that a war …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":206835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-bob-weber","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206839,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206833\/revisions\/206839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}