“Khadr to get apology, compensation over $10M as lawsuit settled” is about Omar Khadr, a Canadian who fought against his fellow Canadians in Afghanistan. Khadr apparently admits throwing grenades at American and Canadian troops, but “doesn’t know if he threw the grenade that ultimately killed [U.S. Sergeant Christopher] Speer”. The Canadian soldiers whom he fought against are now going to watch their tax dollars used to pay about USD$8 million in government funds to Mr. Khadr.
Palestinians have gotten paid for suicide attacks (e.g., CBS; Washington Post), but I wonder if this would make Khadr the world’s highest-paid jihadi.
Data from the Financial Post suggest that Mr. Khadr will be among the 0.1 percent of wealthiest Canadians once he cashes this check from middle-class taxpayers.
Readers: Can you think of anyone who has gotten paid more as a consequence of being involved with jihad?
[Note that, for a Canadian to collect $10 million in child support over a 25-year period, he or she would need to have sex with someone earning approximately $3.75 million per year (assumes 1 child results from the sexual encounter and defendant resident in Alberta). See our Canada chapter.]
Related:
- Ahmed Ressam, formerly living on Canadian welfare benefits, now living at U.S. taxpayer expense in Club Fed due to his attempt to blow up LAX
Have not yet read how it happened and how he ended up released into general population. But we sure should pay more attention now to Canadian front – it is going to become a magnet for folks like this Khadr.
The article writes “Thousands of American service members were killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Khadr remains the only captive the U.S. has prosecuted for murder under the Military Commissions Act, which the U.S. drafted following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Prior to 9/11, it was not considered a war crime to kill a soldier in a war zone.”
Do you know why it was changed to make killing a soldier a war crime?
The summary here seems to be missing some key facts:
1. The guy was a 15-yo teenager at the time
2. He (might have) killed a soldier in a war zone, which is a weird thing to consider a war crime
3. He’d been in Guantanamo camp for 8 years without trial
> anyone who has gotten paid more
Emad Salem claims he earned $1M from attacking the World Trade Center in 1993.
Claims he was recruited by handlers from 3-letter agencies to join a group of bad guys, build a fake weapon, plan a fake attack, then take them down. Except, he says, he became worried they were setting him up as a real patsy. So he began secretly recording all his conversations with everyone. After his fears were confirmed by the 1993 WTC attack he told his handlers about his recordings, allegedly showing the agencies supplied live (not fake) materials for the weapon and knew its planned use! Says they paid him $1M to: shut up about his recordings, testify against the bad guys, then leave the country.
Google him for more info, but his Wikipedia page is heavily edited.
@mishka
While #1 is not very relevant substantially but only insofar as being a mitigating factor, #2 and #3 are quite compelling.
I recall a discussion of the quaint “unlawful enemy combatant” label at some legal blog about 10-15 years ago. The consensus appears to have been, rather obviously, that a detainee could be either subject to the protections and penalties of international law (as a POW) or to the protections and penalties of domestic criminal law(as an ordinary criminal).
Since the then administration did not accept the “either-or” dichotomy and invented the Guantanamo style legal limbo instead, I guess the $8M can be considered a sort of fine for the Bush administration decision that Canadians were gracious enough to pay.
reminds me of the illegal immigrant in san francisco that sued the city for turning him over to ICE.
Mishka,
1. The guy was a 15-yo teenager at the time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children#International_law
“However, children who are over the age of 15 but under the age of 18 are still voluntarily able to take part in combat as soldiers. ”
2. He (might have) killed a soldier in a war zone, which is a weird thing to consider a war crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#1942_Quirin_case
I think to kill a soldier in a war zone legally, you have to follow the laws of war. In Khadr’s case…
“…or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.”
3. He’d been in Guantanamo camp for 8 years without trial
I think his first trial was in 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khadr#Legal_trials
The weird thing about this is why the Canadian government is on the hook. Khadr was born in Canada, but spent most of his life (even his early years) in Central Asia. Isn’t this guy Pakistan’s problem? Oh and it wasn’t Canada that captured him, jailed him etc. I’m not sure what any Canadian government official could have done to get him out of Guantanamo, if that were desirable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khadr#Early_life
Philip,
I don’t think that any Jihadi has ever been awarded more money. Not that he’s likely to see it, he still owes the widow of the soldier he killed a bit of cash…
http://nationalpost.com/g00/news/canada/widow-of-medic-could-go-after-omar-khadrs-10-5-settlement-harper-legal-advisor/wcm/679d0067-4f48-4435-b00e-baf61b4bdb15?i10c.referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F
This person lives in my city. The judicial system that allowed this lawsuit to go forward is as absurd as anything that can be imagined. That he, and his family engaged with known terrorist organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and ended his soldier career in the latter country, should be awarded compensation by courts is alleged to have occurred as a result of our sharing of information with US authorities.
Our own Prime Minister has refused to discuss the matter with the media, other than a brief comment about it being a judicial matter.
My own Member of Parliament, from a non-governing party, has not returned any response to my inquiries.
I have many questions about this matter, and hope that the many transgressions our countries politicians make against yours, make news and influence your people to get involved to change policies regarding these types of issues.
I’m wondering if this ultimately will cause Trudeau’s party to lose power in Canada. Whatever the merits of Mr. Khadr’s case, I don’t see how this can be explained to middle-class Canadians. For Trudeau and Co. to explain that Mr. Khadr indeed had a meritorious case under Canadian law would simply bolster their opponents’ arguments that Canada needs a new government and new laws.
Two can play this lawsuit game. Khadr may not get to keep the portion of the settlement that was not already taken by his lawyers. Easy come, easy go.
“Speer’s [the American soldier that Khadr may or may not have killed by throwing a grenade at him ]widow, Tabitha, and former soldier Layne Morris, who was wounded in the firefight and lost sight in one eye, sued Khadr in a Utah court for damages. In 2015, a Salt Lake judge handed down a $134.2-million (U.S.) default settlement after receiving no reply from Khadr or his lawyers.”
At the time, this was seen as more of a symbolic lawsuit, but now that Khadr has some real money, they will surely go after it. At the very least, a lot more of it will be eaten up in legal fees.
philg 10, I would be pleasantly surprised if this happened. There was nothing visibly wrong with previous conservative government and Canadian PM with outstanding character and credentials but Obama’s anti – fossil fuel policy and renegading on Canadian oil pipeline in partial to help W Buffet railroad investments (at least a correlation) sunk Canadian economy a little but enough to elect the opposition party. Now Trump’s fossil fuel policy growing Canadian largely fossil fuel and natural resources based economy ( I am not trying to denigrate extensive Canadian know-how, just a fact) and propelling current Canadian government.
MV15 and mishka, I never heard that surrendered soldiers awarded 8 million dollars, even if in Canadian dollars. I am all for to giving him away to Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban government, where he belonged, after his extended Caribbean vacation, no match to even best of military internment camps up to date
@philg: Holding the state accountable for state misconduct against the guilty (or the accused but innocent, or even the strictly innocent) is necessary and important but can indeed be and often is in fact used by demagogues to political advantage. One more reason to identity and stand against demagogues.
Disclaimer: “Whatever the merits of Mr. Khadr’s case” (which I don’t have an opinion on).
“2. He (might have) killed a soldier in a war zone, which is a weird thing to consider a war crime.”
Just because a soldier is in a war zone doesn’t mean that anyone, civilian or military, is free to take potshots (or throw grenades) at him without consequences. Khadr was not an enemy soldier in uniform, as Joecanuck correctly explains.
But, IF Khadr was in fact an enemy soldier and not subject to prosecution for murder, then alternatively he was a prisoner of war and should be held until the conclusion of the war. It’s either one or the other. Since the war is apparently not over and apparently will never be over, he should have been held in a POW camp for the rest of his life. Many of the prisoners from Guantanamo who have been released have returned to the battlefield, which is precisely the reason why you should never release prisoners until the war is over.
The Geneva Conventions were enacted with the promise of reciprocity – you be nice to our prisoners and we will be nice to yours. This is a futile hope in the case of the Taliban/Al Qaeda/ISIS, etc. If the situation had been reversed, they surely would have beheaded any American prisoner, so there’s really no point in observing the Conventions in this war.
Khadr was shot by the American troops after he threw the grenade that killed Speer. He apparently begged the Americans to finish him off so he could achieve martyrdom. They should have taken him up on it. Applying Western legal norms to people who live by another value system is dumb to the point of being suicidal.
BTW, the settlement was $10M Canadian, which is only $7.7M in real money.
>If the situation had been reversed,
>they surely would have beheaded
>any American prisoner, so there’s really
>no point in observing the
>Conventions in this war.
Misconduct by the enemy does not excuse any misconduct by ourselves.
Neal, I already explained that the Geneva Conventions are not really rooted in ethics but in reciprocity. It’s not misconduct in wartime to kill enemy combatants but we make an exception for soldiers in uniform who have been captured because of the hope of reciprocal treatment, which doesn’t exist in this case.
“Can you think of anyone who has gotten paid more as a consequence of being involved with jihad?”
There was the Maher Arar case – except that Arar wasn’t involved with jihad. He happened to meet with someone who was under surveillance; the RCMP shared this information with the US. While flying through the US, he was deported to Syria, where he was tortured for a year. After being released, Arar sued the Canadian government, which settled for C$10.5 million.
The Khadr case is different because Khadr was fighting for a hostile power, which is high treason, punishable by a maximum of 25 years. But Canada can’t just declare that he’s a traitor, without a trial; we would need to prosecute him for treason. I assume his age when he was captured would make that difficult (he can argue that it was his parents who moved him to Pakistan and Afghanistan).
“I’m wondering if this ultimately will cause Trudeau’s party to lose power in Canada. Whatever the merits of Mr. Khadr’s case, I don’t see how this can be explained to middle-class Canadians.”
The explanation will be that the Supreme Court already ruled on Khadr’s case seven years ago. The government didn’t have much choice but to settle. Campbell Clark, ‘Odious’ Khadr payout is the penalty for being lax on the rule of law:
Note that Khadr’s currently appealing his US war crimes conviction.
Sorry, correction: the maximum punishment for high treason is life imprisonment, without parole eligibility for 25 years.
@Russil:
“The payout, in the end, is the penalty for being lax on the rule of law”
That’s the simple point I’ve been trying to make. The governe
Oops, hit “return” too soon…
@Russil:
“The payout, in the end, is the penalty for being lax on the rule of law”
That’s the simple point I’ve been trying to make. The government paid with taxpayers money for its own stupidity. Not sure why some people find that controversial.
In this instance, Trudeau hardly deserve any blame despite him being a dimwitted commie sympathizer that Canadians for some mysterious reasons chose to be their leader. Good looks, maybe ? Perhaps, Canada is farther down the Sendero Luminoso of progressivism than this country, who knows.
@dean:
> There was nothing visibly wrong with previous conservative government and Canadian PM with outstanding character and credentials
Harper:
– wanted the TPP, which would have killed hundreds of thousands of jobs (his record on trade was literally 0-40 for deals producing more net exports)
– increased penalties for cannabis, against the will of 85%+ of Canadians
– broke promises for fixed date elections, an elected senate, etc.
– pushed through unpopular measures without discussion using undemocratic omnibus bills
It’s fair to say Canadians voted against Harper rather than for Trudeau.