Canada to Pay $8Mln as Compensation to Former Child Soldier for Abuse at Gitmo

The Canadian government will pay a multimillion compensation to Omar Khadr, a Toronto-born former child soldier, for the abuse he suffered while detained in the US Guantanamo Bay military detention camp, local media reported Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the Toronto Star newspaper, the lawyers of Khadr reached a deal with the country's Department of Justice within the framework of the litigation between the former Gitmo detainee and Ottawa, which has been accused of poor protection of its citizen's rights.

The newspaper added that under the deal, Khadr could receive a compensation worth between 10 million Canadian dollars ($7.7 million) and 20 million Canadian dollars.

In 2002, US troops detained then 15-year-old Khadr in Afghanistan after a deadly clash with US servicemen and later sent to the Guantanamo facility. Washington prosecuted the Canadian national for murder under the Military Commissions Act for killing a soldier in the wartime. In 2010, Khadr accepted a plea deal and later was returned to Canada. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the participation of the Canadian officials in the interrogations in regards to then-minor Khadr in Guantanamo offended the country's standards about the treatment of detained youth.