Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Youngest Guantanamo detainee pleads guilty

Omar Khadr --- a 24-year-old Canadian citizen and the last person holding Western citizenship among the detainees --- plead guilty to five charges, including the murder of a Special Forces medic in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 when he was captured there.

Under the plea agreement, Khadr will serve one year in Guantanamo, and then can apply to be relocated to a Canadian facility. If the Canadian government accepts him, he will be eligible for parole under Canadian law after serving a third of his sentence.

The deal, several weeks into his trial before a military tribunal, saves him from the possibility of a life sentence, if he had been found guilty.

Khadr was born in Canada but soon moved with his family to Afghanistan. His father, said to have been an associate of Bin Laden and a radical jihadist, was killed in a gun battle with Pakistani forces, when Khadr was 10.

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