Ever since the Trudeau government’s reported $10 million-plus settlement with Omar Khadr became public, one aspect of the debate has centred around whether he was responsible for his actions at the age of 15.

Accepted Islamic belief confirms the age of maturity at puberty.

For boys, this is marked by the appearance of facial hair, a deepening of voice, and other, less visible, hormonal changes.

For girls, the onset of menstruation denotes womanhood.

These milestones are established in Islamic orthodoxy, and their significance is implied in the laws of various Islamic countries.

Not only is marriage condoned at a very young age, but punishment and retribution are also determined on the basis of who is considered an adult.

For example, the current Iranian penal code sets the age of maturity under sharia law for girls at nine years and for boys at 15.

(This violates international standards, which generally set legal responsibility at 18 for both sexes.)

Khadr was 15 at the time of the criminal acts of which he was convicted.

According to accepted Islamic practice, he was by no means a child.

It is only in our more benign judicial system that someone 15 years old who commits a serious crime is treated differently than an adult.

So, should Khadr receive the sort of compensation Trudeau is reportedly offering?

According to Islamic protocol, certainly not.

Khadr admitted to throwing the fatal grenade that killed an American medic, and he accepted the conviction as part of a plea bargain, even if he later said he confessed only to get out of Guantanamo to serve the rest of his time in Canada.

In Canada, even people wrongfully convicted of a crime do not automatically receive compensation.

As the website of the Ontario Attorney General notes: “In recent years, there has been growing recognition in Canada and elsewhere that persons who have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned should receive compensation from the state. Despite this growing recognition, there is no legal entitlement in Canada to compensation either by way of a statutory scheme or otherwise.”

On what basis is Trudeau offering such generous compensation, and an official apology to Khadr for his treatment in Guantanamo Bay, where he was imprisoned by Americans, not Canadians?

(The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled in 2010 that Canada violated Khadr’s constitutional rights when CSIS and foreign affairs officials interviewed him, knowing he had been sleep-deprived, and shared the information with U.S. investigators.)

It is only in Trudeau’s Canada that such naive acquiescence to Islamist extremism can allow someone like Khadr to be rewarded in this fashion.

It is only in Trudeau’s Canada that terror-related offences, albeit committed by a child under Canadian, rather than Islamic law, can receive such leniency.

There are people in Canada who will continue to play the victim card and quash any legitimate debate of the heinous Islamist practices connected with Khadr’s case.

Orthodox Islamists in this country know how Islam defines adulthood, but have chosen to stay mum about it in this case.

Now would have been a good time for them to show their enlightened credentials by repudiating what Khadr did, siding with Canadian taxpayers and protesting these misguided moves by the Trudeau government.

Instead, the Khadr case allows Canadian Islamists to gloat about yet another victory in this country for their brand of extremism.