Statement from Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar and International Human Rights critic Wayne Marston on the repatriation of Omar Khadr

Today, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, has again called on Canada and the US to transfer Mr. Khadr to Canada, as was agreed in October 2010. Mr. Khadr has spent a decade at Guantanamo Bay and is the last child soldier still being held there.

Both the Supreme Court of Canada and the U.S. Supreme Court, with the benefit of the full factual record, have found that the military commission proceedings to which Mr. Khadr had undergone violated U.S. domestic law and Canada’s international human rights obligations.

The United States has successfully reached repatriation agreements with Australia, Britain, and other countries under conditions which permitted Guantanamo Bay detainees to be returned to their country of nationality.

In 2010, on behalf of the Canadian government, Lawrence Cannon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, agreed to Omar Khadr’s return as part of a plea agreement. The NDP is dismayed that to date, the Conservatives have not yet honoured their public commitment, made with the US government, to allow the transfer of Omar Khadr to a Canadian facility.

Continued inaction on the part of the Harper’s government, which is another example of their mismanagement of this issue.