Abdullah Khadr

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abdullah Khadr (1981-) is a member of the Khadr family and the oldest son of Ahmed Said Khadr, a senior member of the Al-Qaeda group. Like his five siblings, Abdullah was born, and spent his childhood in Canada. His father, Ahmed Khadr was a naturalized Canadian, and engineer. However he stopped working as an engineer in the 1980s, when he started working for Human Concern International -- a charity -- in Afghanistan. It is now widely accepted that Ahmed Khadr had diverted funds and resources from the aid programs he was supposed to be administering to Al-Qaeda coffers.

In the mid-nineties Ahmed Khadr moved his family to Afghanistan, where they lived in bin Laden's compound. The Khadr boys were sent to Al-Qaeda military training camps, even though they were still children. Abdullah's younger brother, Abdurahman, reports being sent for training when he was only eleven years old.

Following the American invasion of Afghanistan the family split up. Abdurahman made his way to the American lines, where he was captured, and where he completely co-operated. Third brother Omar was involved in a skirmish, on July 27th, 2002, where his comrades were killed, and American Sergeant Layne Morris was wounded and Christopher J. Speer was mortally wounded. It was widely reported that Abdullah had been a suicide bomber, and had taken a Canadian soldier with him, in a suicide attack in Afghanistan.^[1]^[2] But he was subsequently interviewed for the documentary "Son of al Qaeda".

In the documentary he acknowledged attending the Khalden training camp. But he said that a ten-year-old learning to fire an AK47 was as common in Afghanistan as it was for a Canadian child to learn to play hockey.

In early 2005 there were some reports that Abdullah had been captured.

On December 7, 2005 Abdullah arrived at Toronto's airport.^[3] His family lost contact with him in the fall of 2004. He said that he had been captured, in Pakistan, by Pakistani security officials. A Pakistani newspaper had published that a Canadian terrorist was in custody, a year ago. But Khadr's incarceration was not openly acknowledged. No formal charges were filed against Khadr during his imprisonment in Pakistan.

The Toronto Star said "Court documents show that Khadr and his sister Zaynab are under investigation by the RCMP for terrorism-related offences. But Khadr has not been charged criminally in Canada.",^[4]

Khadr was met and debriefed by Canadian security officials. Both the CBC and the Toronto Star reported speculation that the United States would seek to extradite Khadr.

On an interview on the CBC Khadr's lawyer Dennis Edney asserted that Canadian security officials had interviewed Khadr while he was incarcerated in Pakistan. He said that they had not complied with Khadr's requests that they tell his family where he was.

On December 8, 2005, the Toronto Star offered a fuller summary of Khadr's account of his incarceration in Pakistan.^[5]

According to Khadr he was interviewed by both Canadian and American officials.
Khadr said he met with Canadian officials on six occasions. Those officials included those identifying themselves as consular officials, CSIS officials, and RCMP officials, including Sergeant Konrad Shourie.
Khadr said he was always driven to a "safe house" when he met with American officials.
Khadr said Americans who identified themselves as FBI agents asked him to come to the USA as a witness.
Khadr said Canadian officials questioned him about Aly Hindy, Amer Elmaati and Maher Arar.

On December 17, 2005 Khadr was arrested in Toronto by the RCMP. They acted on a provisional warrant, which was requested by the US. Khadr is accused of smuggling $20,000 worth of munitions to al Qaeda.^[6] The US allegations are that Khadr's gun-running predated the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.^[7] The US claims he smuggled C4, mortar rounds, and anti-tank missiles, right up until his capture in October 2004. A bail hearing was scheduled for Khadr for December 19, 2005.^[8] But the judge agreed to postpone the hearing to December 21, 2005, to give Khadr's lawyers a chance to prepare.^[9] The Associated Press circulated a story that Sergeant Konrad Shourie had submitted an affadavit stating that Khadr had confessed arms trading.^[10]

On December 18, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin spoke at length about Abdullah and other members of the Khadr family.^[11] Martin reiterated that there was only one kind of Canadian citizenship, and that Abdullah, and the other members of his family were as entitled to all the legal protections as any other citizen.

Canadian commentators have been perplexed as to why Canada failed to charge Khadr under Canadian anti-terrorism laws.^[12]