The Bowden Institution correctional facility will soon receive a high-profile inmate when Omar Khadr is transferred to the facility from Edmonton.
Edmonton lawyer Dennis Edney, who represents Khadr, 27, said Khadr's transfer will take place in the coming weeks.
The reason for the transfer, he added, is that Khadr's security-risk status was downgraded in the last month.
ìHe's now been declassified from maximum security to medium security and therefore he'll no longer be detained at a maximum prison and goes to such a prison as Bowden.î
Khadr, who was born in Ottawa, is currently serving an eight-year sentence at the maximum-security Edmonton Institution after pleading guilty in October 2010 to five charges including murder, attempted murder, providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy and spying.
He served the first two years of his sentence in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he had been held since the U.S. military captured him in Afghanistan in 2002 following a raid and firefight where a U.S. soldier was killed.
Khadr was repatriated to Canada in 2012.
Jeff Campbell, a spokesman for Correctional Service Canada, said privacy laws would not allow him to comment on the matter.
ìIn terms of an offender's location, we do have restrictions under the federal privacy act in terms of precise location of which institution where an offender is serving their time,î he said.
According to Correctional Service Canada's security classification scale, an inmate is classified as ìmaximum securityî when he or she presents ìa high probability of escape and a high risk to the safety of the public in the event of escape,î or requires ìa high degree of supervision and control within the penitentiary.î
A ìmedium securityî classification comes when an inmate presents ìa low to moderate probability of escape and a moderate risk to the safety of the public in the event of escape,î or requires ìa moderate degree of supervision and control within the penitentiary.î
The Bowden Institution is a medium-security facility with a minimum-security Annex.
