National Post (National Edition)
Amid court battles, Khadr uses $3M of settlement to buy mall
Utah judgment for US$134M on Afghan firefight
OTTAWA A ND EDMON TON • Even as American families affected by casualties in Afghanistan seek a share of the $10-million settlement the Canadian federal government paid Omar Khadr, the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner has started spending the money — using $3 million to buy a strip mall in Edmonton last November.
Documents related to the sale show the 9,150-squarefoot commercial property was purchased with a cash lump sum on Nov. 29, 2018, by a numbered company, 2156536 Alberta Ltd., which lists Khadr as a director. The five-unit strip mall has an assessed value of just over $1.5 million, the documents show, and was last sold in 2009 for $850,000. Through his lawyer Nate Whitling, Khadr declined to comment about the purchase.
National Post obtained the documents Friday after receiving a tip from a source earlier that day. On Sunday, conservative media outlet The Rebel published a post about Khadr’s purchase.
The low-slung, dark brick building is in a residential Edmonton neighbourhood called Kensington. Tenants include a daycare, a tire shop, a travel agency and a garden centre, closed for the season. When the Post visited early Monday afternoon, a few dead plants could be seen withering on its shelves. A handful of vehicles were parked in the lot outside the strip mall, and a car and a minivan sat completely covered in snow. A city bus stop stands at the edge of the strip mall’s parking lot and an elementary school is located across the street.
The government paid Khadr the settlement nearly two years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that Canadian officials violated his rights by failing to protect him from abuses suffered at Guantanamo Bay, the notorious U.S. prison.
“The Canadian government has put this court in a position where it has to enforce a judgment and a ruling that was derived from torture, the same torture that the Canadian government has apologized for,” he said in brief comments to reporters outside court at the time.
While negotiating a plea deal that would eventually see him returned to Canada, Khadr confessed in front of a since-discredited American military commission to throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Sgt. Sean Christopher Speer and blinded fellow soldier Layne Morris during a firefight at a suspected al-qaida compound in 2002. Khadr, arrested in the battle’s aftermath, had been 15 at the time. He was ultimately convicted of five war crimes.
Khadr was released on bail in Canada in 2015, pending a lengthy appeal of his conviction in the U.S. His lawyers unsuccessfully sought to loosen his bail conditions in December; Khadr had sought a Canadian passport, the ability to travel outside Alberta without notifying a bail supervisor, and to remove the requirement that conversations be monitored between Khadr and his sister Zaynab, who has spoken out in favour of al-qaida and who was once investigated for supporting the terror group.
Also in 2015 a Utah court awarded Morris and Speer’s widow, Tabitha S peer, US$134 million in damages from Khadr. The two are continuing to fight civil cases in Alberta and Ontario courts to have that judgment recognized in Canada.
“At this point I can’t control, my clients can’t control what Mr. Khadr does with his money,” said Jamie Schacter, a Toronto-based lawyer for Speer and Morris, in response to news of Khadr’s purchase.
“I believe in our justice system, I strongly believe in our clients’ case and I believe that there is a valid judgment out of Utah to enforce in our court system,” he said.
Managers of the businesses that are tenants at the mall who were willing to speak with the Post Monday were aware the building had changed hands, but had never met their new landlord.
At the Skyview travel agency, owner Alaeddin Alhussainy, an Iraqi refugee, said he had dealt exclusively with the realtor and had never met the new owner. “I’m shaking,” he said halfjokingly, chuckling, after learning it was Khadr. The manager at the auto shop next door, who declined to give his name, had also never met him, and questioned why the media continued to hound Khadr after he’d done his time.
As news spread of the transaction Monday, a few negative reviews for the businesses at the mall had begun to crop up online. “Found out that this location pays its rent to Omar Khadr. Please boycott until the owners relocate otherwise you are indirectly paying a terrorist,” one person posted about the travel agency.