Stéphane Dion, leader of Canada’s opposition Liberal Party, has called upon Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to “demand that Omar Khadr be removed from Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be transferred to the United States to be tried in a legitimate court.”

Khadr, a Canadian citizen whose family has had close ties to Osama bin Laden, was captured in Afghanistan during a battle in which the house he was in was destroyed and invaded.  In the exchange of fire, he is alleged to have killed an American army medic with a grenade. He was also wounded in the clash.  At the time, he was 15 years old, a fact that Dion noted. He has been kept in Guantanamo for five years. An army court threw out the chare against Khadr — that of being an illegal enemy combatant — because evidence that he was a combatant was not adequate to prove that he was “illegal.”  Other countries have successfully sought release of their nationals from Guantanamo, but Canada has been reluctant to get involved. 

Dennis Edney, Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyer, has been barred from the legal team representing him and refused attendance at a hearing for Khadr at Guantanamo on November 8.  Mr. Edney’s difficulties are the result of a difference of opinion between him and Lt.-Commander William Kuebler about how to proceed.  Edney has favored focusing on preparation for the trial, while Kuebler has spent considerable time in Canada, trying to encourage the intervention of the Canadian government in the case. Dion recently met with Khadr’s Canadian lawyers and with Kuebler. Conservative MP Art Hanger, chairman of the House of Commons Justice Committee, reacted to Dion’s position, saying, “I think his priorities are all messed up.”