Last Westerner at Guantanamo ‘returning to Canada’

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The last Westerner held in the US prison for terror suspects in Guantanamo is returning to his native Canada, Canadian TV reported on Saturday.

Omar Khadr left the prison on Saturday morning on a military plane bound for Canada, CBC said, quoting a military source. It did not say if the source was Canadian or US.

Khadr was arrested as a teenager in Afghanistan and has been held at the US prison in Cuba since 2002.

Omar Khadr, who was born in Toronto and became a child soldier for Al-Qaeda, was 15 in 2002 when he was wounded and captured by US troops during a four-hour US ground and air attack in Afghanistan.

He has been eligible for a transfer to Canada since October 2011 after pleading guilty in 2010 to five war crimes, including for throwing the grenade that claimed the life of US soldier Christopher Speer.

CBC said he would serve part of his remain sentence in Canada.

There was no immediate confirmation of the CBC report from the Canadian government.