Canada: Khadr fights to keep CAN$10.5M settlement

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Ont. (AA) – Court documents filed in a Canadian court Wednesday show Omar Khadr is fighting to have his assets remain under his control.

The Canadian-born Khadr recently collected CAN$10.5 million from the Canadian government for wrongful imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay.

Khadr’s court filing is in response to one filed earlier in the week by the widow of Sgt. Chris Speer and injured soldier Sgt. Layne Morris, who want Khadr’s assets frozen as they try to collect the $10.5 million.

An American court earlier awarded Tabitha Speer and Morris US$134 million in a wrongful death and injury suit against Khadr.

Khadr was 15 when he allegedly threw a grenade in Afghanistan that killed Sgt. Speer and blinded Morris in one eye.

Speer and Morris filed an injunction in a Canadian court in June in a bid to freeze Khadr’s assets so they could not be frittered away or hidden.

Khadr’s lawyer Nate Whitling said in the court filing there is “scant evidence” Khadr would hide or spend the money.

“The scant evidence offered in support of this pleading consists of double and triple hearsay statements drawn from the media and Wikipedia,” Whitling wrote, according to Canadian media. “The hearsay now relied upon by the applicants is so vague and unreliable as to be of zero probative (evidential) value.”

The filing by Speer and Morris also requests Khadr be made to provide an accounting of his assets. Khadr has not talked about the money because of confidentiality requirement invoked in a clause in the settlement with the Canadian government.

Speer and Morris also argued in the injunction that Khadr might give money to members of his family “who appear to be unrepentant supporters of violent extremists”.

Whitling rejected that claim in his filing.