Bring Khadr Home

Omar Khadr is expected to plead guilty in exchange for being transferred from Gitmo to a Canadian jail. Observers say it's in the best interests of the Conservatives, and human rights, to let him do it.

It’s being reported that Omar Khadr’s lawyers have arranged for him to plead guilty to murdering a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15. Under the proposed deal, Khadr will serve eight years in jail, seven of them back home in Canada. If the deal goes through it will be the conclusion of a legal saga that has tested U.S.-Canadian relations, the validity of anti-terrorism laws, and the definition of child soldiers.

Good news, proclaims a Globe and Mail editorial. As a Canadian, Khadr “should be dealt with under Canadian principles that have respect for a second chance in life.” He was only 11 when his father took he and his family to live in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, and “It should be no great surprise that he joined the terrorists.” One could argue it would have been a surprise if he hadn’t. “Mr. Khadr has already served more than eight years,” the Globe says. “He should be encouraged, eventually, to get on with rehabilitating himself.” Someone might want to check the editorial board at Sun Media, who quite possibly just had a collective rage-induced seizure upon reading that last sentence.

The confusion of the Khadr case proves that it is “time for Western nations to reach an understanding on the rights and procedures that are owed to alleged terrorists captured on foreign battlefields,” says a National Post editorial. The U.S. has used a “bewildering array of techniques” to prosecute terrorists, ranging from torture to civilian trials. Standard procedures must be drafted, including “an understanding on the question of how old a boy must be before he is treated as a proper terror suspect.”

Khadr’s proposed plea deal “might be in the Conservatives’ best interests,” writes the Post’s John Ivison. Pointing to the government’s hands-off approach to the Abdelrazik and Khadr cases, the Liberals often accuse the Conservatives of being less than diligent in protecting the rights of Canadians, but if Ottawa can impose a sentence agreed to by U.S. prosecutors and simultaneously bring Khadr back home, it will appease both Washington and many of Stephen Harper’s critics.