In October 2010, Canadian Omar Khadr was convicted of using a grenade to kill a U.S. soldier. In May 2012, President Barack Obama and/or members of his administration are fighting for Khadr’s freedom.
That’s right–although Khadr was found guilty of killing US Army medic Sgt. Christopher Speer and sentenced to 40 years by a military jury, there is a deal in the works to transfer him to Canada where his prison sentence can be cut drastically. And the Obama administration is pushing the deal.
To be clear, they began pushing for it just weeks after Khadr was convicted and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. According to a Dept. of Defense press release dated October 31, 2010:
The United States Government (USG) has requested the assistance of the Canadian Government in implementing the plea arrangement the USG has made with Omar Khadr. As part of this plea agreement, Khadr has admitted his guilt for the following crimes: murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. The USG requested that Canada consider a request for transfer made by Khadr under existing treaty arrangements for the transfer of offenders between the two countries.
Note, there is no question regarding Khadr’s guilt. Yet the push is on to get him and out of Guantanamo Bay and back to Canada (and to his family).
While no one has offered a concrete explanation for why the Obama administration might be doing this, some have mulled whether it’s his way of making peace after allowing the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. After all, the Khadr family has deep terrorist ties that lived with bin Laden for a time in the years before the September 11.