A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan has received an apology and a multimillion-dollar payment from the Canadian government after a court ruling said his rights were abused.
A government statement on Friday said details of the settlement with Omar Khadr were confidential, but an official familiar with the deal said previously that it was for $CAN10.5 million ($A10.7 million).
A different official confirmed that the money had been given to Khadr. Both insisted on speaking anonymously because they were not authorised to discuss the deal publicly.
The government and Khadr's lawyers negotiated the deal last month based on a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Canadian officials violated his rights at Guantanamo. The government released a statement apologising to Khadr.
"On behalf of the government of Canada, we wish to apologise to Mr Khadr for any role Canadian officials may have played in relation to his ordeal abroad and any resulting harm," said the statement from Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.
The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by US troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, US Army Sgt First Class Christopher Speer.
Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission.
He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody.
He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.
Khadr lawyer Dennis Edney issued a statement lauding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the settlement and criticising the administration of his predecessor, Conservative former PM Stephen Harper.
"Omar Khadr was abandoned in a hellish place called Guantanamo Bay, for 10 years, a place internationally condemned as a torture chamber," Edney said.
The ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence from Khadr under "oppressive circumstances," such as sleep deprivation, during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, and then shared that evidence with US officials.
Goodale said Friday the settlement is unrelated to what happened in Afghanistan.
"It's about the acts or the omissions of the Canadian government after Mr Khadr was captured and detained," Goodale said.
