OTTAWA - The Conservative government will not be asking the United States to send prisoner Omar Khadr home to Canada, despite a Supreme Court ruling last week that found his Charter rights were -- and continue to be -- violated.
"There's no shift in Canadian policy on this and when I say there's no shift in Canadian policy, I take it all the way back to the previous government," Dimitri Soudas, associate communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told reporters Wednesday.
The nine justices ruled unanimously last week that Canadian officials had violated Khadr's constitutional rights by participating in the military regime at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba.
The teenager had been subjected to sleep deprivation, and had no access to a lawyer or an adult advocate, facts known to Canadian interrogators who met with him in 2003 and 2004.
The court said his rights continue to be violated as information illegally obtained in prison is used in current legal proceedings against him.
But the nine judges stopped short of directing the government to request his return to Canada, deferring to the government's oversight in matters of foreign affairs. Still, they did warn that the courts do have the power to act if current rights violations go unchecked.
Soudas said the ruling is still being reviewed with respect to Khadr's current rights situation.
Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae dismissed Soudas' comments, saying the government needs to "get serious" about its response to the top court.
"The Attorney General of Canada has to tell us how the government intends to comply with a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada," Rae said.
Khadr was 15 years old when he was picked up by American forces in Afghanistan following a protracted firefight in which a U.S. military medic was killed. Khadr was alleged to have thrown the grenade that killed the American, and has been awaiting a trial every since.
He was supposed to go before the hugely controversial Guantanamo Bay military commission, but that was shut down by Washington this year.
The Canadian public is split on the Khadr case, largely due to his family's reputation. His family has had professed ties to al Qaeda and once lived on Osama bin Laden's compound in Afghanistan.
