Khadr payout gets noticed in U.S. media
Story tops on Fox News website
• The federal government payout to Omar Khadr has received meagre attention in the U.S. media — until now.
The Wall Street Journal has published a scorching op- ed written by opposition MP Peter Kent that’s now gaining traction elsewhere.
The f ormer j ournalist penned a piece titled, “A Terrorist’s Big Payday, Courtesy of Trudeau.”
The item begins with a description of Khadr killing an American army medic, Christopher Speer, when he was 15 years old and fighting alongside al- Qaida in Afghanistan.
It explains how Khadr won a court fight in Canada, was repatriated here, released on bail and then sued the Canadian government for $20 million.
The Conservative MP criticizes the Trudeau government for settling with Khadr, while the victim’s family got nothing.
By Monday afternoon it was the No. 1 story on the Fox News website.
The Fox News item quotes Kent’s op-ed under the headline: “Gitmo Lottery: Canada makes millionaire out of terrorist who killed U.S. soldier.”
Google searches for Khadr’s name were up more than 700 per cent Monday in the United States from the previous day, according to Google Trends.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Khadr issue had not come up during meetings with U.S. state governors at a conference in Rhode Island.
He also said while he shares the concerns of Canadians who object to the settlement payment, it was the responsible thing to do, both morally and economically.
“I can understand Canadians’ concerns about the settlement. In fact, I share those concerns about the money. That’s why we settled,” Trudeau said on Thursday.
“If we had continued to fight this (lawsuit), not only would we have inevitably lost, but estimates range from $ 30- to $ 40 million that it would have ended up costing the government. ... The measure of a society — a just society — is not whether we stand up for people’s rights when it’s easy or popular to do so. It’s whether we recognize rights when it’s difficult, when it’s unpopular.”
Speer’s widow, Tabitha, and Layne Morris, a U. S. soldier who was blinded in the firefight in which Speer died, went to court last week in an attempt to have Khadr’s assets frozen, but were unsuccessful.
They are now trying to have the judgment enforced in Canada and claim the $ 10.5 million that sources have said the federal government paid him to settle his breach-of rights suit against Ottawa.
CANADA MAKES MILLIONAIRE OUT OF TERRORIST.