Ottawa wants to delay Omar Khadr’s transfer to provincial jail while it appeals
Posted July 8, 2014 11:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – The federal government says it plans to appeal a court ruling that orders Omar Khadr be transferred to a provincial jail.
The Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled the former Guantanamo Bay detainee should be serving a youth sentence in Canada and not be in a federal prison.
In a statement, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney says a youth sentence is not appropriate for Khadr. He says the government will be seeking a stay of the appeal decision while it asks the Supreme Court to hear the case.
Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to several war crimes charges, including murder, for killing an American soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15.
After spending a decade in Guantanamo Bay, Khadr was sentenced by a US military commission to an additional eight years and sent to Canada.
Khadr was reclassified earlier this year as a medium-security inmate and transferred to Bowden Institution in central Alberta from the maximum-security Edmonton Institution.
