Omar Khadr received $10.5M from Ottawa on Wednesday, government confirms
Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner also expected to receive apology for wrongful imprisonment, abuse
Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr received a $10.5-million legal settlement Wednesday and will also receive an official apology from the Canadian government, a senior government source tells CBC News.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould will speak to reporters in Ottawa starting at 11:45 a.m. ET. CBC News will carry their news conference live.
The source told CBC News that the decision to pay a settlement to resolve Khadr'scase was not about what he did or did not do as a 15-year-old in Afghanistan. Rather, the payment reflects the fact that his charter rights were violated, and the Liberal government will support the charter, even when it's unpopular.
The Canadian Press reported late Thursdaythat a source familiar with the situation had saidthe Liberal government wanted to get ahead of an attempt by two Americans to enforce a massive U.S. court award againstKhadrin Canadian court.
Word of the quiet money transfer came on the eve of a hearing in which a lawyer planned to ask the Ontario Superior Court to block thepayouttoKhadr, who currently lives in Edmonton on bail.
Toronto lawyer David Winer is acting for the widow of aU.S. special forces soldier, Chris Speer, who Khadr is alleged to have killed after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, and another U.S. soldier, Layne Morris, who was blinded in one eye in the battle.
Tabitha Speer and Morris won a $134-million dollar USdefault judgment against Khadr in a Utah court two years ago, but legal experts have said getting any money Khadr might receive in order to satisfy the Utah judgment would be extremely unlikely to succeed.
It was not immediately clear whether the hearing scheduled for Friday morning would go ahead given the payout.
The government source CBC News spoke to Friday morning denies this settlement was an attempt to avoid this lawsuit, saying it was of dubious merit.
'Oppressive' interrogation'
The government andKhadr'slawyers negotiated the deal last month, according to The Associated Press.
The Toronto-born Khadrconfessed to killing Speer in Afghanistanwhen he was 15, under interrogation that was later deemed "oppressive."
He hadbeen seeking $20 million in a wrongful imprisonment civil suit against Ottawa.
The senior government source said this settlement is comparable in size to the one Maher Arar received in 2007 for Canada's role in a U.S. decision to deport him to Syria, where hewas jailed and tortured.
Arar's settlement set the bar, the source said. The government faced the choice of continuing to fight in court, spending millions more, and then ending up paying the same settlement, or paying up now, reinforcing the importance of respecting charter rights.
International attention
The Canadian was taken first to prison at the Bagram U.S. military base in Afghanistan and then to the prison at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission
After pleading not guilty to five war crimes charges, including murder, in 2010, he changed his plea to guilty later that year and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody.
- OPINION | Khadr deserves his settlement and his apology
- OPINION |Khadrmight be entitled to a settlement, but it's wrong to say he deserved it
He returned to Canadatwo years laterto serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his war crime convictions, in which he argued that his admissions of guilt were made under duress.
Khadr spent 10 years in Guantanamo Bay. His case received international attention, with some advocating that he should be treated as a child soldier, not an adult.
The senior source saidFriday morning that the previous Conservative government lost three times at the Supreme Court in cases involvingKhadr'streatment.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruledthat Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence fromKhadrunder "oppressive circumstances," such as sleep deprivation, during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, and then shared that evidence with U.S. officials.
Another case about his repatriation agreed that the Canadian government failed to live up to its obligations under Canadian law when it violated his human rights. The federal government also lost in a third case that attempted to have him treated as an adult rather than a juvenile offender in the Canadian legal system.
Prominent Conservatives have been sharply criticizing the settlement since the news broke earlier this week.
Speaking to CBC News, the senior government source accused the Conservative Party of Canada of pursuing the Khadrcase for political and fundraising reasons, suggesting the previous government left Khadrin jail in Guantanamo Bay because it helped them with theirpolitical fundraising.
Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer is expected to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. ET in Calgary.
With files from David Cochrane and The Canadian Press
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