Milestones

SENTENCED

While the future of Guantánamo Bay remains undetermined, the fate of one of its most controversial detainees looks decided. Eight years after Omar Khadr, now 24, was arrested as an al-Qaeda militant in Afghanistan and sent to the U.S. detention facility in Cuba, a panel of military officers sentenced him to 40 years in prison. But he will serve only a fraction of that time. Khadr's case drew particular attention from human-rights organizations and other critics of military commissions because he was 15 at the time of his capture. In an agreement with prosecutors, Khadr (below, in an early portrait) pleaded guilty to five charges, including murder in violation of the law of war and providing material support for terrorism. He admitted throwing the grenade that killed U.S. Sergeant Christopher Speer and placing land mines. In exchange, Khadr--a Canadian citizen whose late father was a senior al-Qaeda member--will serve no more than eight years in prison. After the first, he will probably be transferred from Guantánamo to Canada, where he could be free on parole in less than three years.