Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr, the Toronto-born detainee whose decade-long case has bitterly divided Canadians, is on his way home to serve the remainder of his sentence. The Toronto Star has learned that the 26-year-old prisoner was flown off the U.S. Naval base on Cuba’s southeast shore and expected to arrive in Canada early Saturday morning.
Guantanamo officials notified Khadr of his transfer Wednesday, assuring him he would be repatriated by the end of the weekend, a Pentagon source said. Just where Khadr will be incarcerated – or where the U.S. military flight will land – continues to be a closely guarded secret.
But a Canadian government source told the Star in an interview earlier this year that the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines’ maximum-security facility, near Montreal, was a strong possibility. The prison’s Special Handling Unit, nicknamed “the SHU,” houses the majority of Canada’s prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.
More information on his whereabouts is likely to be released once he arrives on Canadian soil. The Khadr saga began more than a decade ago, in June 2002, on a battlefield in Afghanistan. The 15-year-old was shot and captured by an American Special Forces unit following a lengthy battle where U.S. Delta Force Sgt. Christopher Speer was fatally wounded.