On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Omar Khadr, a Canadian-born former Guantanamo detainee, who sought to erase his war crimes convictions, including the killing of a US soldier in Afghanistan.
Khadr had waived this very right to appeal in 2010 when he pleaded guilty to the charges of murder. This move came despite a later ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington, which raised questions about whether Khadr could have been charged with the crimes initially. A split decision by a three-judge panel held that Khadr had forfeited his right to appeal.
Khadr’s accusations harken back to an alleged firefight at a suspected Al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan, when he was a mere 15 years old. Captured by US troops, Khadr was believed to have thrown a grenade causing death of US Army medic Sergeant First Class, Christopher Speer. Khadr was subsequently transferred to Guantanamo and was charged with war crimes by a military commission. However, in 2019 his war crimes sentence was announced to have expired by a Canadian judge.
Provided medical care by the US military after the alleged firefight in 2002, Khadr was sent to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was four years later that the Bush administration enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006, giving military tribunals the jurisdiction to try “unlawful enemy combatants” for specific terrorism-related crimes, and establishing a new military review court in Washington to hear appeals.
In 2007, charges against Khadr that he had waived his right to appeal were referred to a military tribunal. He pleaded guilty to all five charges brought against him, which included providing material support for terrorism. For this, the commission sentenced Khadr to 40 years in prison. In 2012, the Obama administration agreed to have Khadr repatriated to Canada to serve his remaining sentence there. He was released on bail by a Canadian court in 2015, and four years later, his sentence was commuted.
Citing the US Constitution’s ban on convicting someone of a crime for conduct that was not against the law when it was committed, Khadr sought to clear his conviction from the books while still in prison in Canada. This challenge was dismissed by the military review court, which ruled that he had given up his right to appeal when he pleaded guilty over a decade ago.
Although Khadr now resides freely in Canada and is eligible to apply for a passport and travel overseas, his appeal rejection by the Supreme Court ensures that war crimes convictions remain on his record.
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