Supreme Court Declines Rehearing Former Guantanamo Detainee’s Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on July 22 to rehear an appeal by a Canadian former Guantanamo Bay detainee who asked to set aside his convictions for the murder of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and related crimes he committed when he was 15 years old. The decision not to revisit the case of the petitioner, Toronto-born Omar Ahmed Khadr, 37, came after the court denied his petition for certiorari, or review, on May 20 regarding a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case goes back to 2002 when Mr. Khadr was arrested in Afghanistan in connection with the death of Sgt. Christopher Speer, a U.S. soldier, in a firefight. Mr. Khadr threw a hand grenade that killed Sgt. Speer. Mr. Khadr’s father, a senior operative for the al-Qaeda terrorist group, had taken his son to Afghanistan and left him with bomb makers. The terrorist cell fired upon U.S. troops when they arrived in their compound....