- The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Omar Khadr’s attempt to vacate his conviction for the 2002 murder of a U.S. soldier and other crimes he committed when he was 15 years old.
- The justices declined to hear the appeal, noting that Khadr waived his right to appellate review as part of his 2010 plea agreement.
- Mr. Khadr, a Canadian, was one of the youngest detainees at Guantanamo Bay and pleaded guilty in exchange for an eight-year sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by a Canadian former Guantanamo Bay detainee to have his conviction for killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002 and other crimes he committed as a 15-year-old to which he later pleaded guilty.
Judge for Omar Khadr, now 37, after a lower court refused to hear his case because he waived his right to appellate review as part of his 2010 plea deal before the U.S. military commission. refused to hear their appeal.
Mr. Cadre was one of the youngest prisoners held in a detention facility at a U.S. naval base in Cuba. Mr. Khadr pleaded guilty in exchange for eight years in prison and transfer to a Canadian prison. He was granted bail in 2015 and completed his sentence in 2019 while continuing to seek the dismissal of his US convictions.
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He was taken to Afghanistan by his father, an al-Qaeda official, who apprenticed his son to a group of bomb makers who opened fire when U.S. forces came on the premises in 2002. During the gunfight, 15-year-old Khadr threw a grenade. He killed Sergeant Christopher Speer, a U.S. Army medic. Mr. Khadr was shot twice and seriously injured when he was captured by U.S. forces.
Omar Khadr smiles while answering questions at a press conference after being released on bail in Edmonton, Alberta, on May 7, 2015. Khadr, a Canadian, was once the youngest prisoner held on terrorism charges at Guantanamo Bay. (Reuters/Todd Collor/File Photo)
In 2007, Mr. Khadr was indicted on five charges under a 2006 US law known as the Military Commissions Act, including murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, and material support for terrorism. He was 24 years old when he pleaded guilty.
In 2012, a federal appeals court in another Guantanamo Bay detainee case issued a ruling that could affect Mr. Khadr. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that defendants cannot be charged under the Military Commissions Act for certain crimes that occurred before the 2006 Military Commissions Act was enacted.
Despite agreeing to waive his right to an appellate court, Mr. Khadr appealed to the D.C. Circuit. Khadr’s lawyers said his conviction was based on actions he took in 2002, before Congress passed the law, and violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on criminalizing acts after they had occurred. claimed to have done so.
The D.C. Circuit dismissed Mr. Khadr’s appeal, citing a waiver of appellate hearing.
The issue in Mr. Khadr’s Supreme Court petition was whether he was bound by an agreement to waive his right to appeal, not whether his conviction should be immediately set aside.
Mr. Khadr’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that Mr. Khadr agreed to waive his right to appeal, but when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling establishing a new legal standard in favor of Mr. Khadr’s case. In fact, he said, he had not submitted any documents to finalize the waiver.
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President Joe Biden’s administration had asked the judge to dismiss Mr. Khadr’s appeal.
Khadr’s plea deal comes in a case in which the United States became the first country after World War II to prosecute a defendant in a war crimes tribunal for acts he allegedly committed as a boy. At the time, Khadr’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that he was a child soldier and should be rehabilitated rather than prosecuted in a military tribunal.
In 2017, Canada formally apologized to Mr. Khadr and paid $7.83 million in compensation for “any role that Canadian authorities may have played in connection with his ordeal abroad and the resulting harm.”
In 2002, a few months after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States by al-Qaeda insurgents harbored by Taliban leaders, the U.S. Opened the Guantanamo detention facility. The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2022 after Biden withdrew U.S. troops.
