| Abdurahman Khadr عبد الرحمن خضر | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Abdurahman Ahmed Said Khadr 1982 (age 43–44) Manama,Bahrain |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| ISN | 990[1] |
| Status | Released, living inCanada |
| Parents | Ahmed Khadr Maha el-Samnah |
| Relatives | Omar Khadr (brother) |
Abdurahman Ahmed Said Khadr (Arabic:عبد الرحمن أحمد سعيد خضر,ʿAbd ar-Raḥman Ḫaḍr; born 1982) is a Canadian citizen who was held as anenemy combatant inextrajudicial detention by the United States at theGuantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba, after being detained in 2002 inAfghanistan under suspicion of connections toAl-Qaeda. He later claimed to have been aninformant for theCIA. The agency declined to comment on this when asked for confirmation by the United States'PBS news programFrontline.[2] He was released in the fall of 2003 and ultimately returned to Canada.
He is the third child and second son ofAhmed Khadr, an Egyptian immigrant who was known for ties to al-Qaeda, and his wifeMaha el-Samnah, who is Palestinian. His younger brotherOmar Khadr was captured by United States forces separately at the age of 15 in Afghanistan in 2002 during a firefight; he was held in Guantanamo for several years but transferred in September 2012 to Canadian custody.
Abdurahman Khadr was born inManama,Bahrain in 1982, the son ofAhmed Khadr andMaha el-Samnah. Egyptian and Palestinian immigrants to Canada who had become naturalized citizens there, and met and married.[3] His father went to graduate school inOttawa, and then started working in Bahrain. Ahmed Khadr visited Pakistan after theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980s, and brought his family to Pakistan in 1985. There he worked for charities assisting Afghan refugees.
In his youth, Abdurahman Khadr was known as the "problem child" in the family, frequently running away and getting in trouble, refusing to follow rules, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. He had an older sister and brother, three younger brothers and a younger sister.[4][5]
In 1994, at the age of 12, Khadr was sent to Khalden training camp along with his older brotherAbdullah, where he was given the aliasOsama.[5] The two brothers fought constantly at the camp, and one day their argument became so heated that they pointed guns at each other, screaming with fury. A trainer stepped between them.[6] In 1997, a dispute between the brothers was mediated by the olderAbu Laith al-Libi, who earned their confidence and respect telling them about the city ofDubai and importedFerraris; he was later described as "really cool" by Abdurahman.[5]
While the family was briefly living inNazim Jihad withOsama bin Laden's family in 1998, Abdurahman became close friends with Abdulrahman bin Laden, who was near his age and the only child in the group to have his own horse, a fineArabian.[7] Abdurahman successfully persuaded his father to buy him a horse, too.[8] Once, when the two horses fought, the young bin Laden pointed a gun at Khadr, yelling at him to stop the fight before his prized Arabian was killed.[7]
When the family was leaving the compound, Abdurahman and his brother Abdullah fought over seating in the car.[5] Their mother ended up asking bin Laden if he could take care of the troublesome Abdurahman since "she could not control him. He grudgingly agreed to look after the youth until his father returned. But, the next day bin Laden told Abdurahman that it would not work, and he askedSaif al-Adel to take the 16-year-old to the bus station so he could catch up with his family en route back toPeshawar."[5]
The following year, at age 13, Abdurahman was sent toJihad Wel al-Farouq for seven days; US officials have said the training camp was run by al-Qaeda personnel to train their militants.[9] On August 20, 1998, the Al Farouq training camp was bombed by Americancruise missiles andAmr Hamed, a friend of Khadr's, was killed. Khadr later said that as a youth, he had hated the Americans for killing his friend.[5]
In November 2001, at the age of 19, Khadr was captured by theNorthern Alliance inKabul, where he was wandering around. An elderly man later claimed that Khadr had installed ananti-aircraft gun on the roof of a house.[4] He was transferred to United States authorities on suspicion of having killed an American medic, but was released.[10] He later claimed to have been captured several other times, and released each time.[8]
At this point, accounts differ. Khadr claims he lived for nine months in aCIAsafe house near the American Embassy in Kabul, and worked abroad as aninformant.[8] But other sources say he was taken toGuantanamo Bay on March 21, 2003 and held as an enemy combatant.[11]
The New York Times later reported that the CIA offered Khadr a contract in March 2003 and asked him to work as an infiltrator for American intelligence in Guantanamo, to be paid $5,000 and a monthly stipend of $3000.[12] While in Cuba, Khadr worked to obtain information from his fellow inmates before spending five additional months at theCamp X-Ray prison, where he claims to have been given training as an undercover CIA operative.[citation needed]
TheDepartment of Defense published height and weight records for all but ten of the captives held in Guantanamo.[13]
The United States later said that Khadr had been removed from the camp in July 2003. However,The Washington Post reported that an October 9, 2003, memo summarized a meeting between GeneralGeoffrey Miller and his staff andVincent Cassard of theICRC; it acknowledged that camp authorities were not permitting the ICRC to have access to Khadr and three other detainees, due to "military necessity".[14]
Khadr says he was later given a bogus passport and boarded aGulfstream jet assigned to CIA DirectorGeorge Tenet. He said that after a stop-over in Portugal, he landed in Bosnia where he was asked to conduct a spy operation atmosques inSarajevo.[8][15] Khadr states that he tried to approach Canadian embassies in various nations and was rebuffed at all of them. He phoned his grandmother Fatmah el-Samnah while inSarajevo and asked her to go to the Canadian media and tell them that he had been stranded and refused entry back into Canada. He was finally granted admission to the Canadian embassy inBosnia and was flown back to Canada on November 30, 2003.[citation needed]
On December 4, 2003, Khadr held a press conference with his attorneyRocco Galati. He discussed his role in the war on terror, but omitted later claimed cooperation with the CIA.[5][16] The following month, he denied reports by theToronto Star that he had been released in exchange for giving the Americans information on the location of his father, who was killed by Pakistani soldiers inWaziristan two weeks before Abdurahman's release.[17]
In March 2004, Khadr gave a series of three interviews toPBS, which became the basis of a documentary entitledSon of al Qaeda. (He had largely passed apolygraph test.) He claimed to have grown up in "an al-Qaeda family", and said that he resented his father's associating with militants.[8][18]
Khadr has offered a number of conflicting accounts of his life. For example, he has claimed that he was as young as 9 when he began attendingAfghan training camps, and that he remained in them until as late as 2003, years after he had not only been kicked out of the camps, but was detained by the United States.[19] He has repeatedly made comments suggesting that everything up until his most recent story was a lie.[19]
In July 2004, Khadr was denied a Canadian passport byGovernor GeneralAdrienne Clarkson, on the explicit advice ofForeign Affairs MinisterBill Graham, by invoking theroyal prerogative. Graham claimed the decision was "in the interest of the national security of Canada and the protection of Canadian troops in Afghanistan." National security was not listed as a ground of refusal in theCanadian Passport Order at the time. It was, however, added as a ground shortly thereafter, on September 22, 2004.[20] Under the terms of the amendment, the Minister was empowered to revoke or refuse to renew or issue a passport on national security grounds.[citation needed]
Khadr soughtjudicial review of the Minister's decision.[21] On June 8, 2006, theFederal Court ruled that the Minister did not have the power to deny Khadr's passport in the absence of specific authority set out in theCanadian Passport Order, but stated inobiter dicta that if the Order were to be amended (as it had been after the fact), Khadr would likely not be able to challenge the revocation. On August 30, 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, thenPeter MacKay, with the support of Prime MinisterStephen Harper, again denied Khadr's application, this time on the basis of the now-amendedCanadian Passport Order.[22]
On January 9, 2005,Variety reported plans to make a movie based on Khadr's life.[25]