Former Child Inmate at Guantanamo Spared Prison in Canada

Omar Khadr, formerly the youngest inmate at Guantanamo Bay, no longer faces the prospect of returning to prison after winning a three-year legal battle in Canada.

The 29-year-old Khadr, picked up in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo when he was still a child, was sent to Canada after more than a decade at the U.S. military prison to serve the rest of his sentence, the product of an internationally condemned military tribunal process. In May 2015, he was released on bail in Canada, though he was forced to wear a tracking bracelet and was subject to a curfew.

On Thursday, Canada's new Liberal government formally dropped efforts to keep him imprisoned.

ANALYSIS: Obama Continues to Cover-Up the Ugly Reality of US Torture

Khadr was captured by U.S. soldiers when he was 15 after a firefight where he was blinded in one eye. He is appealing his murder conviction in a U.S. military tribunal, where he pleaded guilty — and then recanted — in order to leave Guantanamo.

“Give me a chance, see who I am as a person not as a name, and then they can make their own judgment after that,” said Khadr after being released on bail in May. He plans to pursue a career in health care.

OPINION: Close Guantanamo and Return It to Cuba

A Canadian citizen, Khadr has sued the Canadian government for US$20 million in damages for allowing the United States to torture him and violate his rights.

“We left a Canadian child in Guantanamo Bay to suffer torture (and) we Canada participated in this torture,” said his lawyer Dennis Edney.

That case is still pending.