Canada tries to stop release of ex-Gitmo inmate Omar Khadr
The Canadian government was in court Tuesday morning seeking to block the release on bail of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate while he appeals his conviction for war crimes in the United States.
Omar Khadr's release from prison could come as early as Tuesday evening if Ottawa's 11th-hour attempt to stop it fails. The government filed a request seeking an emergency stay of a judge's decision to grant bail late Monday.
Toronto-born Khadr spent a decade in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Since 2012 he's been held in a Canadian prison in the western province of Alberta, serving out an eight-year sentence handed down by a US military commission in 2010. He was convicted of five war crimes, including throwing a grenade when he was 15 years old that killed a US Army sergeant in Afghanistan during a 2002 firefight.
Khadr, once the youngest detainee at Guantanamo and now 28, has since said he only agreed to a 2010 plea deal to get out of Guantanamo and return to Canada.
