[JURIST] Canadian authorities received documents and materials about Canadian Guantanamo Bay [JURIST backgrounder] detainee and convict Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] from US authorities on Wednesday and will now consider whether he can be transferred into Canadian custody. A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews [official website] told reporters that he will review the documents and make a decision [CP report] on the transfer of Khadr based on Canadian law. A former child soldier for al Qaeda, Khadr has expressed his desire to serve out his sentence in his home country. A request was formally sent to the Canadian government [JURIST report] in April, after being approved by the US government. In 2010 Khadr pleaded guilty to five charges [JURIST report] in a military tribunal, including killing a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. Toews is now expected to make a decision on Khadr’s repatriation in the near future.

Khadr was charged after being captured subsequent to a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 in which he threw a hand grenade that killed one US soldier and wounded another. In August 2010 a military judge rejected Khadr’s claim that his confession was a byproduct of torture [JURIST report]. Earlier that month the same judge ruled that Khadr’s confession was admissible at trial [JURIST report]. Canada had previously declined to seek Khadr’s repatriation [JURIST report] after his former lawyers obtained a ruling in the Supreme Court of Canada [official website] that the interrogation of Khadr by Canadian officials while in detention violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text]. According to the ruling, Canadian officials questioned Khadr, even though they knew he was being indefinitely detained and that in March 2004 he was questioned with knowledge that he was subjected to three weeks sleep deprivation by US authorities. Regardless that ruling did not force the government to seek his repatriation.