Ex-Gitmo inmate receives $8M, apology from Canada
TORONTO — A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan received an apology and a multimillionpayment from the Canadian government after a court ruling said his rightswere abused.
A government statement Friday said details of the settlement are confidential, but an official familiar with the deal said previously that it was for U.S. $8 million. A different official confirmed that the money had been given to Omar Khadr. Both insisted on speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.
The government and Khadr’s lawyers negotiated the deal last month based ona2010SupremeCourt of Canada ruling that Canadian officials violated his rights at Guantanamo. The government released a statement apologizing to Khadr.
“Onbehalf of the government of Canada, wewish to apologize to Mr. Khadr for any role Canadian officials may have played in relation to his ordeal abroad and any resulting harm,” said the statement from Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.
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 an American special forces medic, U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. 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 in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.
News that Khadr would receive millionssparked angeramongmany Canadians who consider him a terrorist. Opposition Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called the decision “disgusting.”Scheer accused Trudeau of rushing to give Khadr the money so that Speer’s widow would not have her claim for the money heard in court.
The widow of Speer and another American soldier blinded by the grenade in Afghanistan filed a wrongful death and injury lawsuit against Khadr in 2014 fearing Khadr might get his hands on money from his wrongful imprisonment suit. A U.S. judge granted them $134.2 million in damages in 2015.
Lawyers for the Speer family and the injured soldier, Sgt. Layne Morris, filed an application in Canadian court last month with the hope that any money paid to Khadr would go toward the widowandMorris.
Khadr was the youngest and last Western detainee held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. The ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence fromKhadr under “oppressive circumstances,” such as sleep deprivation, during interrogations in 2003, and then shared that evidence withU.S officials.