A young Canadian terrorism suspect accepted a plea deal Monday that will make him eligible to leave Guantanamo Bay prison in a year, sparing the Obama administration the spectacle of putting the first child soldier on trial for war crimes in modern times.
Officials of the controversial military commission kept secret the length of the sentence agreed to for Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan after a firefight between Al Qaeda militants and U.S. special forces in July 2002. But sources involved in the bargaining had said earlier that an eight-year term was being discussed — the first year to be served at Guantanamo and the rest in his native Canada, if the Ottawa government agrees to take its citizen back home.
Legal and diplomatic officials had been negotiating for more than a week on the terms of Khadr’s guilty plea to five war-crimes charges, including the murder of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer in the melee that followed U.S. bombardment of the compound where the young Canadian was holed up with the hardened fighters with whom his militant father had left him.
Full story: Guantanamo: Plea deal reached in Guantanamo child soldier case