Alberta : Omar Khadr to stay in federal prison

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee has agreed to a stay of a decision by Alberta’s top court that ruled he should be serving his sentence as a youth and be transferred to a provincial jail.

His lawyers say he’s willing to remain at the federal Bowden Institution in central Alberta because he’s doing well there.

In the July 8 ruling, the Court of Appeal of Alberta ruled a lower court judge was wrong to find that Khadr was rightly placed in a federal prison and said he ought to have been put in a provincial facility for adults.

“In summary, the eight-year sentence imposed on Khadr in the United States could only have been available as a youth sentence under Canadian law, and not an adult one, had the offences been committed in Canada.”

The three-judge panel also ruled the U.S. sentence was not incompatible with Canadian laws and should not have been adapted to conform to a punishment under Canadian law for an equivalent offence.

“Under the International Transfer of Offenders Act (ITOA), no one is entitled to second-guess that decision or the sentence, much less convert the eight-year inclusive sentence into something other than what it is.”

Khadr, 27, had appealed the Oct. 18 ruling by Court of Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice John Rooke that he serve the rest of his sentence in a federal penitentiary.

Khadr, originally from Toronto, pleaded guilty in the U.S. in 2010 to murder and four counts related to terrorism and spying. The charges came as a result of the role Khadr played in the 2002 killing of a U.S. special forces medic during a firefight in Afghanistan when he was 15. He spent a decade at Guantanamo Bay before his trial.

Agencies/Canadajournal