Canadian Judge Determines Former Guantanamo Detainee’s Sentence has Expired (March 25, 2019) [1]
On March 25, 2019, Judge Mary T. Moreau in Alberta, Canada, decided [3] in Khadr v. Warden of Bowden Institution that the war crimes sentence of a Canadian man, Omar Ahmed Khadr, who the United States previously detained at Guantanamo Bay, has expired. Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was fifteen years old, pled guilty to crimes committed in Afghanistan in order to receive a sentence of eight years in 2010, was transferred to Canada in 2012 to continue serving his sentence, and was given judicial interim release in 2015. Since then Khadr has recanted and appealed his U.S. convictions to the United States Court of Military Commission Review, which is still pending. Judge Moreau determined that Khadr's time in conditional release should be considered as time in detention, which would have ended in October 2018. Judge Moreau found that the Youth Criminal Justice Act allows for bail conditions to be considered as part of a sentence and also that the decision did not violate the Treaty Between Canada and the United States of America on the Execution of Penal Sentences.