A reader from Waterloo, Ont., wrote to me, frustrated that many Globe articles state the following as fact: that Omar Khadr threw a grenade when he was a child soldier at age 15 which killed U.S. soldier Christopher Speer.
The reader called that "bogus" and argued that Mr. Khadr was forced to plead guilty to avoid 40 years in Guantanamo Bay. "The chasm between 'pleading guilty' and 'being guilty' is huge in this case," he argued.
While I think it is necessary to stick to the facts about this case, I see a new argument rather than a chasm between pleading guilty and being guilty.
What we do know that is a fact is that Mr. Khadr was convicted of war crimes including murder. He pleaded guilty to murder, spying and terrorism charges at a U.S. military tribunal as part of a 2010 deal that included a sentence of eight years – of which only one additional year was to be spent in Guantanamo before he was eligible to be returned to Canada. He did so with the advice of Canadian and American lawyers.
This February he spoke to a psychologist at Bowden Institution, near Calgary, about how he had thrown the grenade and for eight years believed he had killed the U.S. soldier, and how he came to hope that it was not his grenade that killed the soldier. The psychologist's report was in court documents made public at his bail hearing which saw him freed this month.
So what really is the difference between saying he is a "convicted killer" versus saying he is a "killer?" Why does it matter? In normal circumstances if someone pleads guilty to murder, it is completely fair to call them a murderer or killer.
This case is different, though, because Mr. Khadr and his lawyers are now arguing that his convictions should be dismissed. Mr. Khadr's current U.S. lawyers are appealing his U.S. military-tribunal convictions.
Nathan Whitling, one of his Canadian lawyers, claims Mr. Khadr should not be referred to as a "convicted terrorist" despite his admission of guilt as part of a plea-bargain deal.
"His guilty plea occurred in Guantanamo … and so I think the reliability of those convictions is pretty questionable," Mr. Whitling argues.
But in the meantime, it is a fact that he admitted guilt before the commission and that he was convicted. That is known. What is not known as a fact is exactly what happened in that compound in Afghanistan, so care should be taken in describing that incident.
If Mr. Khadr wins at appeal (on the grounds that the crimes he was charged with were not crimes at the time the events occurred), then he will no longer be convicted of or have admitted to those crimes. Until then, as a matter of fact, he is a convicted terrorist.