In the pre-dawn darkness Saturday, Guantanamo guards unlocked Omar Khadr’s cell for the last time, driving him along the rolling hills away from the prison camp, across the bay that divides the U.S. base and onto a small landing strip for the flight that would carry the Canadian from the prison where he had spent almost half his life to the country where he was born.

Khadr had been anticipating the flight since Wednesday, when he was told he would soon be leaving Guantanamo.

Uncertain weather had delayed the departure until 4:30 a.m., when, in military parlance, his flight was finally “wheels up.”

The 26-year-old landed at the Trenton military air base three hours and 40 minutes later, and American officials formally transferred Khadr into Canada’s care, bringing to an end U.S. involvement in the decade-long case.

The Toronto Star broke the news of the transfer 30 minutes after his flight left Cuba’s southeast shore, sparking the torrent of media and public reaction that is customary in the highly polarized Khadr saga.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights released a statement calling Khadr’s case “one of the ugliest chapters in the decade-long history of Guantanamo.”

“Khadr never should have been brought to Guantanamo. He was a child of 15 at the time he was captured and his subsequent detention and prosecution for purported war crimes was unlawful, as was his torture by U.S. officials,” wrote the centre’s legal director, Baher Azmy.

Khadr leaves Guantanamo as the camp’s youngest prisoner and its last western detainee.

He had pleaded guilty in October 2010 to five war crimes, including murder for the death of U.S. Delta Force Sgt. Christopher Speer. Speer was fatally wounded in the July 2002 battle in Afghanistan where Khadr was also wounded and captured.

Khadr received an eight-year sentence in return for his guilty plea and a diplomatic note that said Ottawa would “favourably” consider his transfer to a Canadian prison after one more year in Guantanamo.

As Khadr was transported Saturday morning from Trenton to an assessment unit at Millhaven Institution in Bath, Ont. — which is customary for inmates entering Canada’s federal service — Public Safety Minister Vic Toews issued a statement from Winnipeg.

Toews said he made the decision earlier this week to agree to the transfer.

“Omar Khadr is a known supporter of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and a convicted terrorist,” Toews said.

He outlined Khadr’s guilty pleas. Toews wrote in a statement that several issues “cause me concern,” including Khadr’s participation in “terrorist training and military operations” in Afghanistan and the fact that he “idealizes his father.” Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003, was a close associate of Al Qaeda’s elite.

Khadr’s family associations continue to trouble the Canadian government, said Toews, adding that Khadr’s mother and older sister “have openly applauded his crimes and terrorist activities.”

Toews said Khadr has had “very little contact with Canadian society and therefore will require substantial management in order to ensure safe reintegration into Canada.”

The details of Khadr’s flight and arrival on Canadian soil were kept a closely guarded secret, within cabinet ranks and within the prison system.

Managers with Corrections Canada, not front-line prison guards, took custody of Khadr at Trenton and whisked him to Millhaven. Once the Toronto-born prisoner arrived, he was allowed to speak by phone with his Toronto lawyers.

“He is finding it hard to believe he is really back but is very happy to be home,” lawyer John Norris said. “He is also anxious about having to learn a whole new world in a Canadian prison, but we know he can do that.”

Norris said he was surprised, but not disappointed, that Khadr would first have to undergo an assessment in Millhaven to determine the best facility to serve his sentence.

“We are hopeful they will see he’s not a management problem and that he has tremendous potential,” Norris said. “We like the idea of the assessment based on someone who actually sits down and talks to Omar and gets to know him as opposed to an assessment based on the caricature the government has propagated.”

A Canadian government source told the Star earlier this year that the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines maximum-security facility, near Montreal, was a strong possibility to host Khadr. The prison’s Special Handling Unit, nicknamed “the SHU,” houses the majority of Canada’s prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.

Ottawa lawyer Paul Champ, who helped to advocate Khadr’s cause at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008, told the CBC that Khadr will be very focused now on trying to regain “a normal life” after being imprisoned “in the most notorious prison in the world.”

“He’s got a lot to get over,” Champ said, adding much would depend on whether “Canada steps up and assists in rehabilitation and counselling.”

Norris said Millhaven assessments normally take about six weeks.

About 40 per cent of the facility has double bunks in the cells, according to correctional union officials.

Jason Godin, the union’s Ontario regional vice-president, said only a “small circle of people” were apprised of Khadr’s arrival, and vital information had not yet been shared with guards.

“They have not shared a threat risk assessment with us,” Godin said. “We have lots of questions about managing this guy. We were left in the dark.”

The Pentagon confirmed that Khadr’s transfer leaves 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and added that the U.S. government “co-ordinated” with the government of Canada “regarding appropriate security and humane treatment measures” for the remainder of Khadr’s sentence.

U.S. President Barack Obama had issued an executive order as one of his first acts after taking office, vowing to close Guantanamo Bay — a promise he later admitted his administration would not fulfil. But the release of the last western detainee from the remote island prison may be welcomed by his Democratic base in advance of the first 2012 presidential election debate this week.

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As news about Khadr’s transfer spread Saturday, the reaction grew.

Khadr’s first U.S. civilian lawyer, Muneer Ahmad, now a clinical professor of law at Yale, was among those grateful for Khadr’s release from Guantanamo.

Jennifer Turner, a human rights researcher with the American Civil Liberties Union who attended most of Khadr’s military trial proceedings in Cuba, called his decade in American custody at Guantanamo Bay “abusive” and “abhorrent,” saying it “should never have happened.”

She expressed hope that Canadian authorities would give Khadr “a meaningful opportunity for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, which Canada is required to provide under the child soldier treaty that Canada itself helped establish.”

NDP foreign affairs critics Paul Dewar and Wayne Marston slammed the Conservatives’ handling of the Khadr file.

“Mr. Khadr’s return to Canada was inevitable, yet the Conservatives chose to drag this process out, for years at great cost to taxpayers. Their mishandling has hurt our relationship with the United States, our closest ally, and tarnished Canada’s reputation on the international stage,” they said.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae told the Star he believed Khadr’s return “is long overdue.”

“Omar Khadr was a child soldier, recruited as a young boy, who should have been brought back to Canadian justice and rehabilitation long ago. I salute the efforts of Sen. (Roméo) Dallaire to bring Omar back, and in continuing his efforts to deal with the issue of the tragic recruitment of children into violence and warfare,” said Rae.

But the case became politically charged again this year — much to Washington’s consternation — as Canada’s Conservative government failed to act swiftly on Khadr’s application for transfer.

Toews was accused of deliberately stalling a decision on Khadr’s transfer request. Khadr’s lawyers made a federal court application alleging it was an “abuse of process.” The case was expected to proceed this week.

Senior Obama administration officials told the Star last week that Washington’s patience with Ottawa was wearing thin and the Khadr case was jeopardizing future relations between the countries, although it is not clear if this pressured Ottawa to act.

The Khadr saga began more than a decade ago, in June 2002, on the battlefield in Afghanistan where Speer was fatally wounded and 15-year-old Khadr was taken into U.S. custody.

Canadians have always been bitterly divided about Khadr, the disdain for his family often overshadowing his case.

The guilty plea did little to change public opinion. Some believe pleading guilty was the Canadian’s only way out of the detention facility where he came of age. Others argue the sentence was too lenient and urged Ottawa to refuse his transfer request.

Navy Capt. John Murphy, Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor, told reporters following Khadr’s trial that he felt justice had been served. While he maintained Khadr’s juvenile status did not merit special consideration during the trial, he conceded it was important in sentencing.

“I think good prosecutors don’t always strive to get the greatest possible sentence, but they balance interests,” Murphy said, adding, “I was very comfortable that the result we achieved was fair to everyone.”

Under Canada law, Khadr will now be eligible to apply for parole by next summer. Canada has tightened parole eligibility rules since 2006, and victims or their families now also have a greater say when it comes time to decide on a prisoner’s release.

In 2008, Khadr’s lawyers proposed a rehabilitation plan that included psychiatric treatment at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, religious counselling by a local imam and a tiered integration program that would see Khadr closely monitored for as long as four years.

Norris said they are now taking a “fresh look at what makes sense.”

“The primary responsibility for this lies with Corrections Canada and we will assist them however we can,” said Norris. “We know there are a lot of community resources available for him.”

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