Saturday, September 29,
2012
Tweet @EzraLevant
I am an Afghan veteran and Khadr is in
jail 15mins down the road from me. My friends died fighting his kind. Am
disgusted.
More of Obama's anti-freedom, pro-jihad foreign policy. Scary
stuff, kids. Omar Khadr is
returning to Canada. He is an enemy of the state, a Muslim soldier in the
global jihad. He should have rotted in GITMO, if not faced a firing squad. No,
instead Obama cut his sentence down from 40 years to 8 years, and then 
asked the Canadian government to take Khadr.
Khadr killed Sergeant First Class (SFC) Christopher
James Speer (September 9, 1973 – August 6, 2002). Speer was a combat
medic with a Delta Force. Speer was awarded the Soldier's Medal for risking his
life to save two Afghan children who were trapped in a minefield on July 21,
2002, two weeks before his death.
The Obama adminstration was angry when Canada's Public Safety Minister
Vic Toews failed to act on Khadr’s application for transfer. Senior
Obama administration officials told the Star last week that Washington’s
patience with Ottawa was wearing thin and the Khadr case was jeopardizing
future relations between the countries.
Khadr killed an American soldier -- and Obama freed him. Muhammadan
in the White House.
"Omar Khadr
repatriated to Canada" The Star
Guantanamo prisoner Omar
Khadr, the Toronto-born detainee whose decade-long case has bitterly divided
Canadians, is on his way home to serve the remainder of his sentence.
The Toronto Star has learned that the 26-year-old prisoner was
flown off the U.S. Naval base on Cuba’s southeast shore and expected to arrive
in Canada early Saturday morning.
Guantanamo officials notified Khadr of his transfer Wednesday,
assuring him he would be repatriated by the end of the weekend, a Pentagon
source said.
Just where Khadr will be incarcerated – or where the U.S. military flight will
land – continues to be a closely guarded secret.
But a Canadian government source told the Star in an interview earlier
this year that the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines’ maximum-security facility, near
Montreal, was a strong possibility. The prison’s Special Handling Unit, nicknamed
“the SHU,” houses the majority of Canada’s prisoners convicted of terrorism
offences.
More information on his whereabouts is likely to be released once
he arrives on Canadian soil. The Khadr saga began more than a decade ago, in
June 2002, on a battlefield in Afghanistan. The 15-year-old was shot and
captured by an American Special Forces unit following a lengthy battle where
U.S. Delta Force Sgt. Christopher Speer was fatally wounded.
Khadr is the second youngest son of now deceased Egyptian-born Canadian,
Ahmed Said Khadr, who was close with Al Qaeda’s elite. The Khadr family’s unpopularity
overshadowed much of his case.
In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty before a Guantanamo military
tribunal to five war crimes, including “murder in the violation of war” for
Speer’s death. He received an 8-year-sentence and a diplomatic agreement from
Ottawa that after one more year he would be transferred to Canada in return for
the plea deal.
Yet the guilty plea did little to change public opinion on the
case. Some believe pleading guilty was the Canadian’s only way out of the
detention facility where he had spent a third of his life. Others argue the
sentence was too lenient and urged Ottawa to refuse his transfer request.
Navy Capt. John Murphy, Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor, told
reporters following Khadr’s trial that he felt justice had been served. While
he maintained Khadr’s juvenile status did not merit special consideration
during the trial, he conceded it was important in sentencing.
“I think good prosecutors don’t always strive to get the greatest
possible sentence but they balance interests,” Murphy said, adding, “I was very
comfortable that the result we achieved was fair to everyone.”
But the case once again became politically charged this year -
much to Washington’s consternation - as Public Safety Minister Vic
Toews failed to act on Khadr’s application for transfer. Khadr’s
lawyers accused the government of “abuse of process” for deliberately delaying
a decision and made an application to the federal court.
Senior Obama
administration officials told the Star last week that Washington’s patience
with Ottawa was wearing thin and the Khadr case was jeopardizing future
relations between the countries – although it is not clear if this pressured
Ottawa to act.
Under Canada law, Khadr will now be eligible to apply for parole
by next summer. In 2008, Khadr’s lawyers proposed a rehabilitation plan that
included psychiatric treatment at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health, religious counselling by a local imam and a tiered integration
program that would see Khadr closely monitored for as long as four years.
However the government has given no indication that there is any
formal plan in place for Khadr during his incarceration and has refused to
answer questions on the case.
Posted by Pamela Geller on
Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 03:51 PM
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