Former Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr will soon get his first taste of freedom in over a decade.
The Canadian-born former child soldier, who is serving out an eight-year sentence in prison in Innisfail, Alberta, was granted bail by an Alberta judge on Friday.
Terms of his release will be determined on May 5.
The eight-year sentence was handed down by a U.S. military commission in 2010. Khadr, who is 28, was seeking release pending an appeal in the United States against that conviction.
The Toronto-born Khadr pleaded guilty to five war-crimes charges, including murder, for killing an American soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 when Khadr was 15.
He later repudiated his guilty plea, saying it was the only way to get out of Guantanamo.
After spending 10 years in Guantanamo, Khadr was sentenced by a US military commission to an additional eight years and sent to Canada.
As the judicial process has played out, Khadr, who lost sight in one eye in Afghanistan in 2002 during a battle with US soldiers, has suffered vision problems.
He has expressed the desire to eventually go to medical school and has completed about half his high school degree. However, he can barely see words out of his one eye and has stopped reading.
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