KHADR FACING LAST LEG OF HIS LEGAL HURDLES.

Omar Khadr, who has served out his prison term, and is now a free man in Canada, has lost a pre-trial decision in an Ontario court about whether or not he has to answer questions pertaining to an attempt to collect damages awarded by a U.S. court.

To be precise, an Ontario court has said Khadr must say which items on a 50-point statement of facts — which he signed in 2010 as part of a war crimes guilty plea before a discredited military commission — that he disagrees with. Khadr maintains he signed the statement after being abused in prison in Guantanamo Bay, and says he did so only to get back to Canada to serve out his sentence.

He received an eight-year sentence from the military commission. He was repatriated to Canada in 2012, and served his sentence in a Canadian prison before getting out on bail in 2015. In 2017, the Canadian government formally apologized to Khadr, and awarded him $10.5 million for violating his Charter rights.

In 2019, an Alberta judge ruled Khadr had served his sentence, and was a free man.

So, what’s going on now?

In 2015, Khadr lost a lawsuit in Utah, filed in 2014, by the widow of Sgt. Christopher Speer, a U.S. special forces soldier Khadr was accused of killing in battle as a 15-yearold in Afghanistan in 2002, and Sgt. Layne Morris, another American soldier blinded in one eye by shrapnel.

The Utah court ordered an award of $178-million.

At the time, Khadr was serving out the remainder of his sentence in Canada.

He offered no defence to the lawsuit and said he couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer to represent him in Utah, and that he wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the U.S. to defend himself.

What is happening in Canada?

An Alberta court ruled Khadr’s war crimes sentence had expired. (He’d also appealed to have his conviction overturned in the U.S. and a U.S. civilian court declined to force a military court to hear it.)

Meanwhile, another lawsuit entered the Ontario court system. Tabitha Speer, Christoper Speer’s widow, and Morris, are behind the suit to collect on the damages awarded in 2015 in Utah.

The recent decision wasn’t conclusive on that front — it was a pre-trial decision wherein a case management master said Khadr had to answer specific questions about which items on the 50-point statement of facts he signed in 2010 he now disagrees with.

“The plaintiffs” — i.e., the families — “are entitled to know which specific factual statements Mr. Khadr alleges are untrue,” Linda Abrams, a court case management master, said in her decision.

A similar enforcement application was also underway in Alberta’s courts. Dan Gilborn, the Calgary lawyer representing Speer and Morris in the Alberta case, declined to comment Thursday.

Do we know what Khadr disagrees with in the statement of facts?

No, and Nathan Whitling, Khadr’s Edmonton lawyer, has declined to comment. It is also possible that Khadr will appeal the pre-trial decision, instead of answering.