Canada to compensate ex-Guantanamo inmate, opposition furious

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Canada's Liberal government will apologize to former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr and pay him around C$10 million ($7.7 million) in compensation, two sources close to the matter said on Tuesday, prompting opposition protests.

A Canadian citizen, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 at age 15 after a firefight with U.S. soldiers. He pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. Army medic and became the youngest inmate held at the military prison in Cuba.

Khadr later recanted and his lawyers said he had been grossly mistreated. In 2010, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Canada breached his rights by sending intelligence agents to interrogate him and sharing the results with the United States.

The case proved divisive: defenders called Khadr a child soldier while the then-Conservative government dismissed calls to seek leniency, noting he had pleaded guilty to a serious crime.

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WORLD NEWS | Tue Jul 4, 2017 | 5:09pm EDT
By David Ljunggren | OTTAWA


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-guantanamo-khadr-idUSKBN19P203

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Hieronymus]

2. Good for Trudeau ..

I hope others, wrongly held, will be treated well.

[still_one]

3. His father effectively kidnapped him, and took him to Afghanistan to fight for AQ.

It is a case of committing a crime while under duress.

This reminds me somewhat of what happened to Patty Hearst, but the biggest difference was that Patty Hearst had a trial by jury, and Khadr had no such trial, and as a Canadian Citizen wasn't he entitled to that?

The John Phillip Walker Lindh case also presents some interesting similarities, but Lindh was 20 then, of legal age, and responsible for his own actions as an adult.

[robbob]

6. It was a warzone, a firefight, no?

I don't know if that even qualifies as a crime. We may never know exactly what happened but I have heard Omar picked up a grenade that landed at his feet (which would have killed him) and threw it back at the approaching American forces. I have heard that forensics showed the American soldier was killed by a US grenade, which would support the first claim.

Again, these may just be stories, but my original question remains: if soldiers attack your compound/village and in the course of fighting back you kill one of them, is that a crime, or just the nature of warfare? And why was a 15 year old child soldier held for 10 years without legal representation, charges or a verdict? Guantanamo Bay is a crime against humanity.

[still_one]

7. All good points and questions.

[burrowowl]

4. K&R!!!!!!

[LiberalLovinLug]

5. I'm glad he is finally getting his justice

He was 15, brought to Afghanistan by his father and brainwashed by him to fight.

But what has always puzzled me about this case was...Even IF Khadr's grenade was thrown over a wall at foreign soldiers that were trying to attack and kill him, (which he still denies, he was found under a pile of concrete rubble), and he killed one of them, why would this be classified as an act of terror? What is fair in war? If every soldier was guilty of an act of terror for simply defending themselves, and in so doing killed an enemy..we'd have a lot of terrorists.

[Jake Stern]

8. Right on cue the widow Speer and her money grubbing dirtbag lawyer are braying for the money

Maybe if her husband had turned down the chance to kill for Uncle Sam she wouldn't feel the need to steal the rightful compensation due a to a teenager that was tortured by our military.