A BITTER DIVIDE
Omar Khadr’s reported $10M settlement draws sharply different reactions, with a former cabinet minister calling the deal ’odious,’
Acase that has divided Canadians for nearly 15 years continued to do so Tuesday as news leaked that Ottawa would apologize to Omar Khadr and offer a settlement of more than $10 million for the abuse he endured while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
The vitriol was most intense among fringe commentators on the far right and left, but the issue quickly drew political reactions from across the spectrum, with former members of the Harper administration taking to Twitter and other social media to weigh in.
“Odious,” wrote former Conservative defence minister Jason Kenney, now leader of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party, on Twitter. “Confessed terrorist who assembled & planted the same kind of IED (improvised explosive device) that killed 97 Canadians to be given $10 million.”
Others praised the government apology as long overdue. “Finally we have seen the light!” wrote Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.
While Khadr’s case has always elicited a vigorous debate, news of the settlement triggered extreme commentary Tuesday, including calls on social media for Khadr’s murder and the deaths of the journalists reporting the story, or of advocates who support a government apology.
Speaking to journalists in Ireland, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not comment on the settlement, first reported Monday night by the Star and the Globe and Mail.
“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 the judicial process is coming to its conclusion,” he said.
The Khadr saga — from his capture in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan to news this week of a settlement in a lengthy civil case — has spanned years when both the Liberals and Conservatives have been in power.
Those close to the matter from both parties have said privately the case was particularly personal for former prime minister Stephen Harper, under whom the government spent millions fighting three Khadr cases to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The government lost all three cases and, ironically, it was the 2010 Supreme Court decision that may have helped seal the multimillion-dollar deal in this civil case.
Calling his conditions in Guantanamo “oppressive,” the high court justices issued a “declaration” that stated unequivocally that Canadian intelligence officials had violated Khadr’s rights as a citizen during their interrogations of the Torontoborn teenager in 2003.
“Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel . . . offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects,” the court wrote.
Khadr was15 when he was shot and detained after the July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan where U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer was fatally wounded. Khadr was held and interrogated for days while grievously wounded at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan. Shortly after his 16th birthday, in the fall of 2002, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Now 30 and living in Edmonton, Khadr is recovering from surgery earlier this year to repair wounds suffered 15 years ago. He has said he hopes to attend courses in the fall to become a nurse.
Speer’s widow, Tabitha, and Sgt. Layne Morris, who lost sight in one eye in the 2002 firefight, filed a wrongful death and injury lawsuit against Khadr and his family, and were granted a default judgement of $134.2 million (U.S.) in damages in 2015. The case was not contested and not enforceable in a Canadian court unless lawyers took legal action here.
Tuesday night, The Associated Press reported that Don Winder, a Salt Lake City-based attorney for Speer and Morris, said they filed an application a few weeks ago in Canada to ensure that any money paid by the Canadian government to Khadr will go to them instead. It has yet to be heard. The timing of their application — before news of the settlement had been made public — raises questions about how they were tipped off to the deal.
Khadr remains the only child soldier prosecuted for war crimes in modern history, and both the U.S. and Canada — considered a leader in fighting to protect the rights of minors in conflict zones — were harshly criticized for not considering his age.
In 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty in Guantanamo in return for a chance to serve his sentence in Canada. Once released, he told the Star he was not certain whether he threw the grenade that killed Speer, but took the Pentagon plea deal as he believed it was his only way to leave the U.S. prison in Cuba. A Washington court is considering an appeal of Khadr’s Guantanamo conviction.