The warden of a prison in Alberta, with a big assist from the federal government, has managed to convince a judge that the Canadian public should not be allowed to hear directly from Omar Khadr. This isn’t fair to Khadr – but more importantly it doesn’t serve the public interest.

Khadr, of course, is the former Guantanamo detainee now serving an eight-year sentence at Bowden Institution, a federal prison in Alberta. His long and well-chronicled story, from 15-year-old caught up in the fighting in Afghanistan, through lengthy U.S. custody, to deportation back to Canada, raises important questions about war and how we treat captives – especially those who were under age when captured.

Canadians have a significant interest in hearing from Khadr, who is now 28, as well as seeing him. They should be able to decide for themselves whether he is the onetime naïve child soldier he claims to be, or something more dangerous. Eventually he’ll be released; we might as well know now where he stands.

The Star, the CBC and White Pine Pictures went to court for the right to interview Khadr. He agreed to speak to the Star’s Michelle Shephard, but the warden of the Bowden Institution said no and the federal government objected as well.

Unfortunately, Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada agreed with them when he ruled on the request 10 days ago. “A penitentiary,” he wrote, “is not a place where the public has an expectation of exercising its right to freedom of expression.”

Further, noted the judge, inside a prison the right to freedom of expression “must be balanced against the need to protect the security of the institution and the safety of persons, including the staff, the prison population and any particular inmate.”

In the end, Mosley deferred to the judgment of Nancy Shore, acting warden of the prison, who argued that an on-camera interview would disrupt operations of the prison and require a full lock-down of the institution. The federal government’s lawyer chimed in to say the court shouldn’t second-guess the warden: “She is the person who is best situated to determine what is likely to endanger the security of the institution.”

Those concerns seem absurdly over-blown. Khadr is a controversial figure, but his record in prison has been impeccable. In fact, the prison system has describe him as “quiet, polite and rule-abiding” and someone who “does not espouse the criminal attitudes or code of conduct held by most typical federal offenders.”

More importantly, he seeks an opportunity to explain himself after a 13-year ordeal which, by his own admission, began when he was a teen soldier in Afghanistan, “propelled into the middle of armed conflict I did not understand or want.” In 2010 he pleaded guilty to killing an American soldier, but has since recanted that confession, saying he did it in order to be released from U.S. custody and deported back to Canada.

Where’s the truth? Who is this man at the centre of so much controversy, and what does he believe now?

Canadians should be able to know. The government and the prison should drop its objections to letting him speak, despite the court ruling.