Sorry,Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Stewart
The lawsuit that was filed was before the courts. Not concluded under the Liberal Govt.
The decision to settle, and pay out the $10.5M fell to Trudeau and his Cabinet. Many Canadians polled thought that even $0.01 of taxpayers money was too much, and that his freedom and continued citizenship should have been more than enough.
Up until the 2015 Federal Election, the Govt was committed to defending the action in Court. One of the main pillars of that defense was that once outside of Canada, and participating in a war of aggression, and subsequently detained by a foreign government for acts of war / terrorism, it would be hard to prove direct culpability. We saw much of the same thing in the 90s when young men left our borders and went to the Balkans.
In 2013, Khadr filed a CA$20 million civil suit against the government of Canada alleging that it had conspired with the U.S. in abusing his rights. He said he had signed the plea agreement because he believed it was the only way he could gain transfer from Guantanamo, and claimed that he had no memory of the firefight in which he was wounded.[5][4]
On July 4, 2017, an unnamed government source leaked that the Canadian government would apologize and pay C$10.5 million in compensation to Khadr.[25] At a press conference on July 7, 2017, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale confirmed the settlement and issued a formal apology on behalf of the government.[6] In an interview with Rosemary Barton of Power & Politics that day, Khadr said that he hoped the apology restores a little bit of his reputation. He also said that he hoped the settlement and apology would not cause the Speer family pain and said that if it does, he was sorry for that.[204]
