Abdurahman Khadr

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Abdurahman Khadr (born 1983) is a Canadian citizen, a member of the well-known Khadr family, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba, after being detained in Afghanistan under suspicion of connections to al-Qaida. He later trained to work as an informant for the CIA and eventually admitted that his family did have connections to al-Qaida.

Abdurahman Khadr is listed as Abdul Khadr on the Department of Defense's official list of Guantanamo detainees.^[1] His Guantanamo detainee ID number is 990. His younger brother Omar Khadr, captured separately, during a firefight, remains in Guantanamo.

1 Early life
2 Detention and release
3 CBC Interview
4 Passport issue
5 Movie deal
6 Interview with Ana Maria Gomes
7 See also
8 External links
9 References

[edit] Early life

Abdurahman Khadr was born in Canada, the son of Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian immigrant to Canada.^[2] His father moved to Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, and brought his family to Afghanistan in the 1990s. While in Afghanistan Abdurahman Khadr attended the Khalden training camp, a facility closely linked with al-Qaida. Khadr argues that when he attended the camp in 1998, he was doing so merely under the order of his father, a strong supporter of the Taliban regime and al-Qaida. He claims to have never received anything besides the most basic combat training, and views his experience as a "waste of time."

[edit] Detention and release

In November of 2001, he was arrested in Kabul and handed over to American authorities who flew him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The original account of Khadr's time in US custody was that after many months of detention and interrogation he was returned to Afghanistan in 2003 after no links to terrorism or al-Qaida could be found.

A memo from a meeting held on October 9, 2003 summarizing a meeting between General Geoffrey Miller and his staff and Vincent Cassard of the ICRC, acknowledged that camp authorities were not permiting the ICRC to have access to Khadr, and three other detainees, due to "military necessity".^[3] The DoD released this memo to the Washington Post as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

The story of Khadr's release and subsequent treatment is a murky one. The United States claims that he was returned in July, four months before the ICRC memo confirmed he was still in Guantanamo, Khadr says he arrived in November. Khadr states that he attempted to approach Canadian embassies in various nations and was rebuffed at all of them. He finally gained admittance to the Canadian embassy in Bosnia and was flown back to Canada from there on November 30.

On December 4, 2003 Khadr was still withholding the story that he had co-operated with the CIA.^[4]

[edit] CBC Interview

In March, 2004, Khadr revealed in a two-part documentary broadcast by CBC that he and family members had lived in a compound with Osama bin Laden, and that his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, and some of his brothers had fought alongside al-Qaida members and even stayed with bin Laden for some time after their training.^[5]

In the interview, Khadr claimed to have lived for nine months in a CIA safe house near the American Embassy in Kabul, and worked abroad as an informant. The CIA offered him a contract and asked him to go to Guantanamo Bay as a mole at the U.S. military prison. While in Cuba, Khadr worked to obtain information from his fellow inmates before spending five additional months at the Camp X-Ray prison, undergoing training as an undercover CIA operative. He later was given a bogus passport and boarded a government plane destined towards Bosnia to conduct a spy operation at mosques in Sarajevo.

His work for the CIA ended as he was dropped at the Canadian embassy in Sarajevo to gain access back to Toronto. There he lied to reporters and government officials and denied any connections to terrorist organizations. Abdurahman later acknowledged that he is "the black sheep" of his family for his disavowal of support for al-Qaida, and says he just wants to be a peaceful Muslim.

In the interview, Khadr declared that 'We are an al-Qaida family'. He says he resents his father for dragging the family into a life associated with terrorism. Rumours emerged that Abdurahman's older brother, Abdullah Khadr, had been responsible for a January suicide bomb attack in Kabul that killed Canadian soldier Cpl. Jamie Murphy. Identified by members of the Taliban, Abdullah Khadr was found alive and hiding in Pakistan and was later cleared of any involvement.

Abdurahman Khadr's mother and sister, who during the 2004 CBC interview were unaware of Khadr's detailed CIA role, told the interviewer that they are proud of their family's connection to al-Qaida.

[edit] Passport issue

In July 2004, Khadr was denied a Canadian passport by explicit decision of Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham. To achieve this, Graham advised Governor General Adrienne Clarkson to invoke the Royal Prerogative for an Order-in-Council, a rarely-used power usually reserved for ceremonial duties or government crisis, claiming the decision was "in the interest of the national security of Canada and the protection of Canadian troops in Afghanistan."

Khadr and his attorney, noted Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby, announced they would appeal the decision, and Khadr's appeal of the government's use of Royal Prerogative to deny him a passport came to court on December 5, 2005.^[6] Ruby called the government's position "disgraceful" and said it was inconsistent with the Canadian constitution.

On June 8, 2006, the Federal Court ruled that Khadr was entitled to reapply for a Canadian Passport, although it stopped short of ruling that the Government must issue him one. The court cited that the Federal government had used dubious grounds to deny him a passport, and ordered that Ottawa stop denying him his travel documents.

However, on August 30, 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, now Peter MacKay, advised, with the backing of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor General Michaëlle Jean to use the Royal Prerogative to deny Khadr's application, again citing national security as the reason.^[7]

[edit] Movie deal

On January 9, 2005 Variety reported that there were plans to make a movie based on Mr Khadr's life.^[8] Variety reported the movie deal might be worth "mid to high six figures" to Khadr. On June 5, 2005 Variety reported that Kier Pearson, the screenwriter for Hotel Rwanda would be working on a script for Paramount Pictures.^[9]

[edit] Interview with Ana Maria Gomes

Ana Maria Gomes, a Portugese member of the European Union Parliament, came to Canada to interview Khadr. Gomes is investigating the flights of the CIA's clandestine air-fleet. She came to ask Khadr about his flight from Guantanamo to Bosnia, aboard one of the CIA's Gulfsteam executive jets.^[10] According to an article in the Globe and Mail Khadr told Gomes that he was told the plane was the CIA director's own. Gomes was particularly interested in Khadr's flight because it was one of the 90 that landed in Portugal.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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