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Canada agrees to pay former Guantanamo detainee who admitted killing US soldier $10.5 million

Omar Kadr’s case received international attention after some dubbed him a child soldier.

Omar Khadr
Omar Khadr
Image: Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP, File

A DECISION BY the Canadian government to apologize and give millions of dollars to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan came under mounting criticism today.

An official familiar with the deal said that Omar Khadr will receive CA$10.5 million. The official was not authorised to discuss the deal publicly before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. The government and Khadr’s lawyers negotiated the deal last month.

The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by US troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, US Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission.


The news of the government giving millions to someone who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier has not gone over well among conservatives in Canada.

“Odious. Confessed terrorist who assembled & planted the same kind of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that killed 97 Canadians to be given $10-million,” former Conservative Minister Jason Kenney tweeted said. “Khadr confessed to murdering Christopher Speer, a medic who rushed to his aid.”

Kenney added that Khadr should be in prison paying of his crimes, not profiting from them as the expenses of Canadian taxpayers.

Conservative Party parliament member Tony Clement said “most Canadians know this is absolutely wrong” and urged Khadr to give any settlement money to the widow and children of the American soldier he was accused of killing in Afghanistan. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation started an online petition aimed at Trudeau, deploring the deal.

“This is nuts. Khadr should instead be in jail for the murder of Sergeant Chris Speer, whom he killed. No consideration for Speer’s family,” tweeted Car Vallee, the former spokesman for ex-Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But Former Liberal leader Bob Rae tweeted that compensation was “long overdue.”




Khadr was the youngest and last western detainee held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to confirm the apology and money when asked about it in Ireland.


Khadr’s lawyers have long said he was pushed into war by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, whose family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy. Khadr’s Egyptian-born father was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani military helicopter shelled the house where he was staying with senior al-Qaida operatives.

After his 2015 release from prison in Alberta, Omar Khadr apologised to the families of the victims. He said he rejects violent jihad and wants a fresh start to finish his education and work in health care. He currently resides in an apartment in Edmonton, Alberta.

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