1 Oct 2012

Youngest Guantanamo prisoner returned to Canada

6:58 am on 1 October 2012

The youngest prisoner and last Westerner to be held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre has been returned to his native Canada.

Omar Khadr had been held at the US base in Cuba since 2002 after being detained in Afghanistan aged 15, the BBC reports.

Khadr, 26, will serve the rest of his eight-year jail term in Canada. He pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan.

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a US military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay in 2010 on war crimes charges but as part of a plea deal his sentence was limited to eight years and he became eligible to return to Canada last October.

He was charged with murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

A US military plane flew Khadr to Canada early on Saturday, and arrived at a Canadian air base in Trenton in Ontario province, from where he was transferred to a maximum prison.

Some 166 detainees remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.