OPINION:
Omar Khadr, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, was just given a multimillion dollar apology payout from Canada.
What a face-slap to the widow and other family and friends of the now-deceased U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer.
But this is Justin Trudeau’s world, the one where cold-blooded killers receive more sympathy than the victims they kill.
Here’s the quick case refresher: Khadr, born in Canada, pleaded guilty in 2010 to murder, providing material support for terrorism and other charges for launching a grenade during a firefight at an al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan that killed Speer and blinded another soldier. He was was also charged by a military commission with war crimes, and then sentenced to eight years.
All along, his lawyers had argued that Khadr was only 15 at the time of the incident, that it’s impossible to know if his grenade had been the one that killed Speer, and that he had been pressured to join the war by his father.
In May 2015, Khadr was released. His attorneys filed a $20 million wrongful imprisonment suit, accusing Canada’s government of conspiring with the United States to stick Khadr at Gitmo and subject him to interrogation.
Well, Khadr didn’t get his $20 million.
But the Canadian Supreme Court said he was subjected to “oppressive circumstances” while at Gitmo, like sleep deprivation and interrogation, and therefore, deserved somewhere between $8 million and $10.5 million. So that’s what Khadr got, in a quiet transfer that’s due to be announced Friday.
Speer’s widow, Tabitha?
Well, a U.S. judge had granted her $134.2 million in damages in 2015, but she’s not yet seen any of that money. And even she admits she won’t, despite the fact her attorneys have filed a claim to any pay-out Khadr receives. Khadr, after all, lives in Canada — and we’ve just seen where Canada stands on this issue.
Or, more to point, with whom they stand.
Khadr’s apologized to the families of his victims. And he said he only wants to live his life anew, free of the fetters of the terrorist lifestyle. But who’s to know his heart?
On top of that, it’s simply bad practice to pay money — taxpayer money, no less — to so-called reformed terrorists, or jihadists who claim they were pressured into a life of terror. Either count may be true. But at the end of the day, we can never be 100 percent sure.
And giving money to a jihadist, in full view of the jihadist’s victims, who’ve received nothing, is a complete flip of justice. Truth is, Khadr’s millions of dollars richer, living in a liberal land that regards him a victim — and tied to overseas’ terrorists. Moreover, he’s already claimed in court peer pressure — from his father — drove him once to join a terrorist operation. Are we to believe terror operatives aren’t right now gazing with lustful eyes at this payout, plotting a course to convince Khadr to share the wealth, to help fund their evil designs?
It doesn’t take a genius to see what trouble, what terror-tied trouble, could come.
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