A Federal Court judge has ordered Ottawa to pursue the repatriation of Omar Khadr “as soon as practicable”.

According to a Toronto Star report, Judge James W. O’Reilly wrote that the Conservative government’s ongoing refusal to request Khadr’s repatriation to Canada “offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr’s rights”.

In September 2008, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs David Emerson wrote in response to Gail Davidson, a Vancouver lawyer: “With respect to Mr. Khadr’s repatriation to Canada, it is premature to discuss this issue since his case is still before the courts.”

Khadr, a Canadian citizen, has been held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for seven years. Now 22, he was arrested by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was only 15.

Khadr sustained numerous gunshot wounds and other serious injuries during his capture. Upon his arrest, he was charged with several serious crimes including the murder of a U.S. army medic.

The U.S. government claims that Khadr threw a grenade which killed U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer. According to a Toronto Star report, in March 2008, U.S. Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, a lawyer of Khadr’s, made public U.S. government documents which contradict this narrative.

In a report dated July 28, 2002, a “Lieut. Col. W” states that the person who threw the grenade at Speer had died in the firefight, which would rule out Khadr as the suspect.

The April 23 ruling does not mean that Prime Minister Stephen Harper–who is named as a respondent in the case–will actually request Khadr’s repatriation and does not speak to how the U.S. government might reply to such a request.

Khadr has long remained the only western national at the U.S. detention facility and has repeatedly claimed that he has been abused. Harper has long refused to ask the U.S. government for Khadr’s return.

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