Running Time: 90 & 60 mins
Year: 2015

synopsis

Omar Khadr: child soldier or unrepentant terrorist? The 28-year-old Canadian has been a polarizing figure since he was 15.

In 2002, Khadr was captured by Americans in Afghanistan and charged with war crimes. In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including “murder in violation of the laws of war,” in return for a plea deal that gave him an eight-year sentence and chance to return to Canada. Khadr later recanted his confession. His Guantanamo conviction is being appealed in the U.S courts.

After spending nearly half his life behind bars, including a decade at Guantanamo, Khadr is suddenly released. Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr features unprecedented access and exclusive interviews with Khadr during his first few days of freedom in Edmonton, where he was released on bail on May 7, 2015.

This documentary delivers an intimate portrait of how a teenager from a Toronto suburb became the center of one of the first U.S. war crimes trial since the prosecution of Nazi commanders in the 1940s. Khadr is the only juvenile ever tried for war crimes. Guantanamo’s Child gives Omar Khadr the opportunity to speak for himself on camera, for the first time. Based in part on Michelle Shephard’s authoritative book Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, the documentary takes us from his childhood traveling between a Canadian suburb and Peshawar at the height of the jihad against the Soviets, to Afghanistan and the homes of Al Qaeda’s elite, into the notorious U.S. prisons at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay and back again to Canada.

Finally, his story, in his own words.

Credits

Directors Patrick Reed, Michelle Shephard
Producers Patrick Reed, Michelle Shephard, Peter Raymont

Produced by White Pine Pictures in association with CBC, Radio-Canada,
Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera America and with the participation
of Shaw Media Hot Docs Fund, and the Canada Media Fund
Marketing and promotion assistance provided by Telefilm Canada

Based, in part, on Michelle Shephard’s authoritative book, Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr (Wiley)