OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada will decide on Friday whether the Harper government must ask the United States to return Omar Khadr to the country.
The bench reserved its decision last November in a government appeal to overturn rulings in the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal which ordered Ottawa to ask the U.S. for Khadr's return.
Khadr, a 23-year-old native of Toronto, has been detained at the U.S. military compound at Guantanamo Bay for more than seven years on five charges, including murder as a war crime, for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed U. S. army medic Christopher Speer during a shootout in Afghanistan in July 2002.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has acknowledged that Khadr "suffered terribly" in detention at Guantanamo Bay, but she also questioned whether the court should venture into unchartered territory by ordering the government to seek his return.
"How is demanding or ordering repatriation going to fix that in the past?" asked McLachlin in November, asserting that remedies are not normally handed out at large, but reserved as specific fixes to problems.
At the time, federal lawyer Rob Frater cautioned the Supreme Court against overstepping its authority by overruling a political decision to let the U.S. justice system handle Khadr as it sees fit.
Khadr's lawyer, Nathan Whitling, told the Supreme Court that the government has a duty to seek Khadr's repatriation because it has violated several principles of international law that obligate Canada to protect children and child soldiers and to repudiate torture.
U.S. officials have announced that Khadr would face a military tribunal for his alleged crimes and he was expected to be transferred to a prison facility in Illinois.Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2482931#ixzz0dsemxh8o The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
