Omar Khadr Coming Back?

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that the military tribunals set up to try the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are unconstitutional, the legal dilemma of what to do with these men, who are neither common criminals nor soldiers of a recognized state's military, becomes even more difficult to resolve.

Which may be good news for Omar Khadr, if the U.S. decides to wash its hands of him and let Canada deal with him:

The lawyer for a Canadian teen held at Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military is urging the Canadian government to have him extradited home to be tried now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled American military tribunals are illegal.

Omar Khadr, 19, has been detained at Guantanamo since his arrest in October 2002 for allegedly killing a U.S. soldier and wounding another during a firefight in Afghanistan.

Now that a military tribunal will not be allowed to decide his fate, lawyers for Mr. Khadr are hoping that he will finally be sent home.

"It leaves the U.S. government in a bit of a bind as to what to do with him," Dennis Edney, one of Mr. Khadr's Canadian lawyers, said in an interview from Edmonton. "It turns everything on its head."

The United States Supreme Court yesterday struck down the system of war crimes tribunals established by President George W. Bush to try "enemy combatants," ruling the military commissions violated U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

Omar Khadr will probably never be tried for anything here, even under the terrorism offences in the Criminal Code which allow for greater flexibility in admitting evidence.

Unlike the Toronto 17, his youth and subsequent detention in Guantanamo Bay have made him a symbol to the progessives--and the courts, many of whose judges are in sympathy with the progressives, will find a way to determine at a preliminary hearing that the Crown has not adduced sufficient evidence for a properly-instructed jury to make a finding of guilt.

Welcome back, Khadr.

Source: Ottawa Citizen