Khadr deal right call
The prime minister is giving $10.5 million and a personal apology to a Canadian whose human and legal rights were violated and who was tortured for alleged terrorist activity.
No, no, that’s not Justin Trudeau making amends to Omar Khadr.
This happened 10 years ago, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper said sorry to Maher Arar. That’s right, conservatives with short memories. When the Canadian government stands by and lets others abuse a citizen of this country, it costs money and an apology to make it right, regardless of how you feel about the prime minister of the day.
Arar was stopped at an American airport in 2002 by officials who suspected he was an al-Qaida operative and refused to recognize his Canadian passport.
He was shipped to Syria, the country of his birth he had fled from, where he was thrown in jail for a year and tortured. A national inquiry found no evidence Arar was connected in any way to terrorists.
Harper inherited the Arar mess from the Jean Chretien-Paul Martin Liberal governments. Under legal advice that it would cost millions to fight Arar’s civil case in court, where losing was likely and Arar could possibly be awarded far more than $10 million, Harper made the responsible choice of cutting his losses, paying up, apologizing and moving on.
Unfortunately, Harper didn’t do the same thing with Khadr (whom he also inherited from Chretien and Martin) and left it for Trudeau to clean up. People may not like paying Khadr, but a court might have given him much more and the government lawyers would still need to be paid, win or lose.
Furthermore, the Canadian government might be getting off cheap with Khadr, who already has two Supreme Court rulings on his side to prove that his rights were willfully ignored.
Khadr was 15 when he was shot and captured during a firefight with U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and accused of throwing a grenade that killed one American soldier and wounded another. He had the misfortune of being the son of a top Al-Qaida supporter who had left his family in Toronto, taking his oldest teenage son with him to fight the invading Americans.
Despite his age and international law regarding the responsible treatment of child soldiers, Khadr was shipped off to the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison.
Before Canadian officials interviewed him in 2003 and 2004, the Americans softened up with the teenager with sleep deprivation, threats of rape, frigid cells, solitary confinement and binding him in stress positions for hours.
Meanwhile, the Canadian government of the day was assuring the country Khadr was receiving fair and humane treatment.
Not only was Khadr the youngest occupant of Guantanamo, he was also the last Western citizen kept there.
All other major U.S. allies, including the U.K. and Australia, brought home their citizens charged with terrorism for fair trials and imprisonment. Canada left a boy to rot in prison for a crime he may not have even committed.
Although he confessed to throwing the grenade, that might have had something to do with his torture, his conviction before a closed U.S. military tribunal, and the prospect that pleading guilty would lead to his eventual return to Canada. In light of those factors, his “confession” would likely not meet any legal standards in a Canadian court.
There is physical evidence to suggest Khadr did not throw the grenade.
He was shot twice in the back, suggesting he wasn’t facing the battle. Eyewitness accounts from American soldiers differ on whether Khadr was the last man standing or whether others were still alive and fighting the U.S. forces. Most damning is the forensic report that suggests an American grenade, not the old Soviet ones the Taliban were using, killed Chris Speer and blinded Layne Morris. In other words, friendly fire may be to blame.
Harper was willing to pay and to apologize to Arar. He should have dealt with the Khadr case years ago.
The Conservatives insisted in the lead up to the 2015 election that Trudeau was “just not ready.” Turns out, on this file at least, Trudeau was more than ready to finish what Harper lacked the courage and decency to do himself.
Neil Godbout is managing editor of the Prince George Citizen.