KHADR BUYS STRIP MALL
Uses $3M from settlement
OTTAWA AND EDMONTON • Even as American families affected by casualties in Afghanistan seek a share of the $10-million settlement the Canadian federal government paid Omar Khadr, the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner has started spending the money — using $3 million to buy a strip mall in Edmonton last November.
Documents related to the sale show the 9,150 sq. ft. commercial property was purchased on Nov. 29, 2018, by a numbered company, 2156536 Alberta Ltd., which lists Khadr as a director. The five-unit strip mall has an assessed value of just over $1.5 million, the documents show, and was last sold in 2009 for $850,000. Through his lawyer Nate Whitling, Khadr declined to comment about the purchase.
The National Post obtained the documents Friday after receiving a tip from a source earlier that day. On Sunday, conservative media outlet The Rebel published a post about Khadr’s purchase.
The government paid Khadr the settlement nearly two years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that Canadian officials violated his rights by failing to protect him from abuses suffered at Guantanamo Bay, the notorious U.S. prison.
While negotiating a plea deal that would eventually see him returned to Canada, Khadr confessed in front of a since-discredited American military commission to throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Sgt. Sean Christopher Speer and blinded fellow soldier Layne Morris during a firefight at a suspected al-qaida compound in 2002. Khadr, arrested in the battle’s aftermath, had been 15 at the time.
Khadr was released on bail in Canada in 2015, pending a lengthy appeal of his conviction in the U.S. His lawyers unsuccessfully sought to loosen his bail conditions in December; Khadr had sought a Canadian passport, the ability to travel outside Alberta without notifying a bail supervisor, and to remove the requirement that conversations be monitored between Khadr and his sister Zaynab, who has spoken out in favour of al-qaida and who was once investigated for supporting the terror group.
Also in 2015 a Utah court awarded Morris and Speer’s widow, Tabitha Speer, US$134 million in damages from Khadr. The two are continuing to fight civil cases in Alberta and Ontario courts to have that judgment recognized in Canada.