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Guantanamo's youngest captive turns 26

MIAMI, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The youngest captive at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, turned 26 Wednesday, and awaits extradition to Canada, his lawyers said.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was 15 when he admitted to war crimes, notably including throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, in the Guantanamo war court. In a plea agreement acknowledging his age, he received an eight-year sentence, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

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In an arrangement between the United States and Canada, Khadr was eligible in 2011 to serve the remaining seven years of his sentence in Canada in 2011, but his home country has yet to formally seek his repatriation.

Canada's public safety minister, Vic Toews, has been reviewing Khadr's file, and Toronto attorney John Norris has sued to obtain a court order demanding Toews begin a plan for Khadr's incarceration in Canada, the newspaper said.

Khadr received a visitor from the Canadian government on his birthday, a U.S. military source said told the Herald, but the Canadian Embassy in Washington had no comment.

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