Young Guantanamo inmate pleads guilty

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Omar Khadr, Guantanamo's youngest prisoner, admitted Monday in a plea deal meant to send him home to Canada next year he committed war crimes as a teenager.

His attorney, Army Lt. Jon Jackson, entered the plea on the Canadian citizen's behalf and the judge asked Khadr whether he understood what was happening, The Miami Herald reported.

"Yes," said Khadr, now 24, who has been held at the U.S. base in Cuba since being captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan in 2002.

Word of the plea deal leaked about a week ago but Khadr had kept lawyers and observers guessing about whether he would admit guilt or go back to a trial that was abruptly recessed this summer after his Army defense lawyer fell ill in court.

Khadr's plea before Army Col. Patrick Parrish, a military judge, spared him a risk of life in prison if convicted at trial on charges ranging from murder to conspiracy. Under a deal sealed through an exchange of diplomatic notes Saturday, the United States will support a plan to transfer him to Canada at age 25 to serve the last seven years of an eight-year sentence.

The Canadian government isn't saying whether Khadr would be accepted back into the country. Toronto's Globe and Mail reported Monday Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said he hadn't decided whether he would block a request by Khadr to return.

"I never said I would. I won't speculate," he said. "The act sets out the criteria I have to consider and those are the criteria I'd consider in every case."

He said he "couldn't speculate" on whether Khadr would apply to return to Canada.

"That's his right to apply," Toews said in Ottawa.

"But there's all kinds of issues related to that -- whether the Americans would allow it; they have to consent, of course," Toews said. "So I will leave it to Mr. Khadr to apply; that's his right."