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Keep convicted jihadist from returning home to Canada, right-wing commentator Ezra Levant tells Ottawa

Right-wing firebrand Ezra Levant wants Canada to renege on an agreement to repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay.

The Canadian-born Khadr, whose notorious late father was a key associate of Osama Bin Ladin, has been languishing in the U.S. military's Cuban detention centre since being captured after a 2002 firefight with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The then 15-year-old Khadr was accused of tossing a hand grenade that killed U.S. medic Christopher Speer. After being held in limbo for years and subject to intense interrogation, Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to five war crimes charges before a military tribunal.

Khadr, now 25, was sentenced to 40 years in prison but under a plea deal negotiated with the Canadian and U.S. governments, it was replaced with an eight-year sentence with the option of being transferred to Canada after serving one more year at Guantanamo.

He's been eligible to return since last October and, because he has already served a third of his sentence based on nine years in pre-trial custody, Khadr could be released on parole.

That doesn't sit well with Levant, a columnist and host on the Sun News TV network.

"It's a brazen demand for Canada to put a confessed murderer on Canadian streets so that the U.S. president can save face with his antiwar base," Levant told Postmedia News. "It's using Canadian streets as a garbage dump."

Levant has written a book titled The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, in which he argues the Conservative government would be justified in cancelling the deal because Canadian officials were not shown information that suggests Khadr is still a terrorist threat.

FBI psychiatrist Michael Weiner concluded Khadr is "highly dangerous" and "full of rage ... a high risk of dangerousness as a radical jihadist," Postmedia reported.

"The true nature of Khadr's dangerousness was kept a secret from the Canadian government when the Obama administration was pressuring it to accept the plea deal," writes Levant. "The testimony of Dr. Welner had not yet been given at his trial in Guantanamo Bay."

Khadr's supporters consider him a child soldier because he was under the influence of his his father, alleged al-Qaeda financier Ahmed Said Khadr, who died in a shootout with Pakisatani forces near the Afghanistan border. Omar's brothers were also connected with terrorism.

But Levant dismisses that view and notes more than 10 per cent of Guantanamo prisoners who've been released have returned to the fight.

In an excerpt from the book on Levant's web site, he said Khadr is likely to be welcomed home with open arms but enough Canadian outrage "could cause Canada's legal system to grudgingly keep Khadr behind bars.

"If Canadian courts don't give him credit for time served, and if he's treated as an adult, not a young offender, Khadr could serve as much as 2 1/2 years in jail before being paroled. "

Mike Patton, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, wouldn't comment on Levant's demand that the government cancel Khadr's deal.

"When an application for transfer is received, the minister considers the facts of each case and bases his decision solely on those facts," Patton told Postmedia News.