Feds have paid Khadr $10.5 million: source
TORONTO — The federal government has paid former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr $10.5 million as part of a deal to settle his lawsuit over violations of his rights, the Canadian Press has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source familiar with the situation said the federal government wanted to get ahead of an attempt by two Americans to enforce a massive U.S. court award against Khadr in Canadian court.
“The money has been paid,” the source said.
Word of the quiet money transfer came on the eve of today’s hearing, in which a lawyer planned to ask Ontario Superior Court to block the payout to Khadr, who lives in Edmonton on bail.
The Toronto lawyer, David Winer, is acting for the widow of an American special forces soldier, Chris Speer, whom Khadr is alleged to have killed after a fierce firefight and bombardment by U.S. troops at a compound in Afghanistan in July 2002. Winer is also acting on behalf of another U.S. soldier, Layne Morris, who was blinded in one eye in the same battle.
Two years ago, widow Tabitha Speer and Morris won a default judgment of $134.1 million US against Khadr in a court in Utah. Khadr was in prison in Canada at the time, after being transferred in 2012 from Guantanamo Bay, where he had spent 10 years.
Legal experts have said the application, aimed at getting any money Khadr might be awarded to satisfy the Utah judgment, is unlikely to succeed, in part because Khadr’s conviction in Guantanamo Bay runs counter to Canadian public policy.
The Utah judgment was based almost entirely on the fact that Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes — including killing Speer — before a military commission that has been widely condemned.
Khadr, now 30, has said he was tortured after American forces captured him, badly wounded, in the rubble of the bombarded compound. He said he confessed only to be allowed to leave Guantanamo and return to Canada, because even an acquittal would not have guaranteed him his freedom.
One of Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, John Phillips, said late Tuesday that he could not comment on any payout.
A source familiar with the settlement deal said the terms are confidential and that neither Khadr nor anyone involved in negotiating the agreement could discuss it, including whether any compensation was involved.
Word this week that the government was planning to pay Khadr and apologize to him — yet to be publicly unconfirmed by the government — sparked anger among many Canadians who consider him a terrorist now profiting from his crimes.