For the first time in almost five years since he was arrested and locked up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr was allowed to phone home this week and talk to his family.
The 20-year-old, who is suspected of lobbing the grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, spoke with his sister, mother and grandmother in a 50-minute conversation that took years to organize, The Globe and Mail reported.
His mother, who travelled from her home in Toronto to Ottawa for the phone call, told the newspaper it was jarring to hear her son speak as an adult.
"When we heard his voice, I was almost collapsing, and then he said 'don't cry, hold on,' " Maha Elsamnah told The Globe.
Khadr, who was raised in Afghanistan, fled the country -- along with al Qaeda families -- after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan.
His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was an Egyptian-Canadian engineer who moved his family to Afghanistan in the early 1980s and joined the anti-Soviet uprising before becoming involved with al Qaeda figures, allegedly including Osama bin Laden.
In the summer of 2002, Omar was the only survivor of a U.S. raid on a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan.
Just 15 at the time, he allegedly tossed the grenade that killed one U.S. soldier and wounded others before soldiers shot him three times, then took him into custody.
He was eventually sent to Cuba where he has remained in near-isolation at Guantanamo's Camp 6.
The youth has alleged that he has been subjected to abuse at the hands of his U.S. jailers, including being dangled from a doorframe for hours and being used as a human floor mop to clean his own urine.
Omar's mother told The Globe her son called his jailers "criminals" and said he intends to boycott the U.S. justice system and return to Canada. However, she has little hope that will happen.
"Five years to get a phone call -- I don't know how long it will take him to get him here, or to get him out," she said.
The newspaper reported that the U.S. is preparing new charges against Khadr, including murder and membership in al Qaeda, and that a trip home is unlikely to happen any time soon.
He is expected to appear before a military tribunal this summer.
Khadr told his sister Zaynab that he had no intention of standing trial and "that everything that was happening over there wasn't fair," she said.
The conversation this week mostly appears to have involved family matters. Beyond saying he still has shrapnel in his body and is blind in his left eye, Khadr reportedly said little about his case.
Since his incarceration, Khadr's communication with his family has consisted of letters exchanged through the Red Cross
Khadr, who spends his days studying the Qur'an, told his family to have faith in God.
