- Reaction score
- 4,266
- Points
- 1,260
Hmmmm ....
Let's hope they're also reconsidering this one, too ....The federal Liberals are reconsidering the government’s position on Omar Khadr’s case and may not fight the ruling that let the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner go free earlier this year, according to his lawyer.
Khadr spent 13 years behind bars for his role in a firefight in Afghanistan that left a U.S. soldier dead, but has been free since May, when an Alberta judge granted him bail.
At the time of his release, the Conservative government of the day condemned the ruling and vowed to appeal it. But according to Khadr’s longtime attorney, Dennis Edney, the government has since requested that the deadline for submitting appeal arguments be delayed. Edney said the reason government lawyers sought the delay is that they were considering whether to oppose Khadr’s bail.
“Cabinet hadn’t been put together and given time to consider what it wants to do,” Edney explained in an interview with the Star.
According to Ian McLeod, a spokesman for the justice department, following the bail decision this spring, department lawyers and Khadr’s attorneys “presented a joint agreement to the Alberta Court of Appeal to extend filing timelines for appeal.”
McLeod confirmed that the appeal deadline had been extended until February 2016 but wouldn’t confirm when attorneys had sought the delay. He also didn’t say why the government had agreed to push back the deadline. But he noted that newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tasked Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould with “reviewing the government’s litigation strategy.”
“It would be premature to speculate on how that review may impact specific cases,” he said ....