Danger: Handle With Care

"This is an individual who, as you know, pled guilty to very serious crimes including murder, and it is very important that we continue to vigorously defend against any attempts, in court, to lessen his punishment for these heinous acts."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"Canadians should be concerned with the interference by our government in the judicial system without waiting for the facts to come out. This is not about guilt or innocence. This is just about where he gets placed. ...he hasn't got a chance"
"This government is running out the clock on him for the next five years.
"We think it's a simple argument. It requires a determination be made whether the sentence he received in Guantanamo, if it occurred here in Canada, would be treated as a youth sentence. And we say yes."
Dennis Edney, lawyer for Omar Khadr, former Guantanamo Bay inmate

"We are not applying policy. That's for Parliament. ... There is no discretion that was exercised that needs to be reviewed."
Edmonton Justice John Rooke

As far as Bruce Hughson, the lawyer representing the federal government is concerned, the infamous scion of the former Egyptian-Canadian member of al-Qaeda who withdrew his family from Canada to take them to Pakistan to avoid having them contaminated by Canadian society -- there is no intention within the government to review or amend this offender's status issued by a foreign court.

Ahmad Khadr died in the service of al-Qaeda. He had taken pains to enroll his sons in camps that would train them for jihad. And where Omar Khadr learned how to make improvised bombs. It was his father's intention that all of his sins earn an honourable place within the terrorist militias of al-Qaeda, to aid that group in its battles with the West. The very West that gave the Khadrs haven but whose values they deplored.

Khadr handling explosives.

Young Khadr's commitment to jihad found him among older seasoned fighters in Afghanistan where he was involved in a gunfight with the American military. He was charged with throwing a grenade that killed an Army medic. He was himself wounded in the firefight and evacuated out for medical attention, ending up at Guantanamo prison, at the age of fifteen. He finally pleaded guilty to five war crimes offences inclusive of murder and was sentenced to eight years for killing a U.S. special forces soldier.

He is now an inmate at the Edmonton Institution, a maximum-security prison. His lawyer and his supporters, among them Amnesty International, feel the now-27-year-old Khadr should be moved to a provincial jail, recognized as a young offender. In acknowledgement, they argue, of the eight-year sentence for the murder along with the four additional crimes he was convicted of having committed.

The federal government's argument is that the eight years' sentence was meted out as a youth while the remainder of the convictions were to be served concurrently, as an adult.

The judge hearing the case feels he cannot issue a decision without issuing detailed written explication. Since the case hinges on interpretation of the law.

Mr. Edney is offended by the Prime Minister's commenting on the issue. Mr. Edney is a lawyer. The Prime Minister is the country's primary law-maker; it seems entirely consistent with his office that he declare his opinion on an issue that is of moment to the entire country. It seems that Mr. Edney's opinion is the inappropriate one here.

There are concerns that when Omar Khadr is released he will return to the embrace of his family, again and still living in Canada, taking advantage of the country's social welfare system, while deploring its values and social system as a degraded one, and upholding the superior values and priorities of Islam, inclusive of violent Islamism.

As far as the federal government of Canada is concerned, Omar Khadr is a dangerous terrorist. And as such, he must be treated in a manner that reflects that reality.

He has himself appeared to be compliant and prepared to reform himself. He aspires to continue his formal education, and stated a desire to study medicine. It is feared that reuniting him with his mother and some other members of his immediate family will serve to re-radicalize him.

He may have been born in Canada but he spent his formative years in Pakistan, Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay. Not presenting as an outstanding candidate, given his background, for good Canadian citizenship.


Omar Khadr appears in an Edmonton court Monday, in this artist's sketch. Khadr's lawyer is arguing that his client should be moved from a maximum-security prison to a provincial jail. The Toronto-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.    Photograph by: Amanda Mcroberts, The Canadian Press