THE RUSH TO SETTLE

Word of the quiet money transfer came on the eve of a hearing in which a lawyer planned to ask Ontario Superior Court to block the payout to Khadr. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source said the government wanted to get ahead of an attempt by two Americans to enforce a U.S. court order against Khadr to pay US$134.1-million for his role in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that killed a U.S. soldier and blinded another.

The American judgment was based almost entirely on the fact that Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes before a military commission. Khadr, now 30, has long claimed to have been tortured after American forces captured him, badly wounded, in the rubble of a bombarded Afghan compound. He said he confessed only to be allowed to leave Guantanamo and return to Canada.