Widow goes after money Canada will give Khadr
Lawyer files to have US$134M ruling upheld
• The lawyer for the widow of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan has filed an application so that any money paid by the Canadian government to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner convicted of killing him will go toward the widow and another U.S. soldier he injured.
Don Winder made the comments as a decision by the Trudeau government to apologize and give $10.5 million to Omar Khadr comes under mounting criticism. The details of the deal have not been made public yet, but an official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed it was negotiated last month.
Winder’s filing in Ontario Superior Court also says the applicants might ask for an order blocking Ottawa from paying Khadr any compensation. Alternatively, it wants any government money flowing to Khadr to go instead to relatives of Sgt. Chris Speer and retired U.S. sergeant Layne Morris.
Filed on June 8, the application seeks a declaration recognizing a US$134.1million default judgment against Khadr from Utah in June, 2015, and an order that he pay the money. It also asks for another US$ 900,000 in legal and other costs plus accrued interest.
The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. troops following a firefight at a suspected al- Qaida compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of Speers, an American special forces medic, and injury of Morris, who lost an eye. 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 on bail in May, 2015, pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.
The widow of Speer and Morris filed a wrongful death and injury lawsuit against Khadr in 2014 after Khadr launched a $ 20- million wrongful imprisonment lawsuit. A U.S. judge granted $134.2 million in damages in 2015. “We will be proceeding with that application and trying to make sure that if he gets money it goes to the widow of Sgt. Speer and Layne Morris for the loss of an eye,” said Winder, a Salt Lake City-based attorney for Speer and Morris.
Winder said they thought it was likely there might be some payment “for his wrongful internment in Guantanamo.”
In his lawsuit against the Canadian government, Khadr argues the government violated international law by not protecting its own citizen and conspired with the U.S. in its abusive treatment of him.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2010 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 U.S officials.
Now 30, Khadr spent 10 years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was the youngest and last Western detainee held there. His case received international attention after some dubbed him a child soldier.
The news of the government giving millions to someone who pleaded guilty to killing a U. S. soldier has not gone over well among conservatives in Canada.
“Odious. Confessed terrorist who assembled & planted the same kind of IEDs ( improvised explosive devices) that killed 97 Canadians to be given $10 million,” former Conservative minister Jason Kenney tweeted. Kenney added Khadr should be in prison paying for his crimes, not profiting from them at the expense of taxpayers.
Conservative MP Tony Clement urged Khadr to give any settlement money to Speer’s widow and children. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation started an online petition aimed at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, deploring the deal.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall criticized the federal government for the deal, posting to Facebook: “For Omar Khadr, there ought never be an offer to ‘settle.’”
But former Liberal leader Bob Rae tweeted compensation was “long overdue.”
Trudeau declined to confirm the apology and money when asked about the case in Ireland on Tuesday but didn’t deny it. “There is a judicial process underway that has been underway for a number of years now and we are anticipating, like I think a number of people are, that that judicial process is coming to its conclusion,” the prime minister said.
Scott Bardsley, a spokesman for Canada’s public safety minister, also confirmed there is an ongoing court case. “Settlement processes are always strictly confidential by nature. Accordingly, the government is not in a position to provide any comment one way or another,” Bardsley said in an email.
Khadr’s lawyers have long said he was pushed into war by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, whose family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy. Khadr’s Egyptian- born father was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani military helicopter shelled the house where he was staying with senior al- Qaida operatives.
After his 2015 release f rom prison in Alberta, Omar Khadr apologized to the families of the victims. He said he rejects violent jihad and wants to finish his education and work in health care.