Amnesty International Canada's Legal Work Database

Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen who in 2002 was captured by American forces in Afghanistan. He had found himself in a fire fight and allegedly threw a grenade which resulted in the death of a US soldier. Mr. Khadr was 15 years old at the time. He was detained, interrogated, and sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he spent the next decade. In 2005, Mr. Khadr was declared an enemy combatant and the US laid formal charges against him. He was to be tried before a Military Commission. In preparing his defense, Khadr sought an order from the Supreme Court of Canada requiring Canadian officials who interviewed him in Guantanamo Bay to disclose all records they had provided to American officials stemming from those interviews. The Supreme Court of Canada ordered that the government disclose that information to Mr. Khadr. Following the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgment recognizing that Mr. Khadr’s Charter and international human rights had been violated at Guantanamo Bay, Mr. Khadr made repeated requests to the Canadian government to seek his repatriation to Canada. Amnesty International applied to intervene in Mr. Khadr’s case before the Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada.