Suit And Countersuit

"They have no evidence. They are relying upon the tainted, internationally decried Guantanamo process."
Dennis Edney, lawyer for Omar Khadr

"Tabitha Speer has suffered the loss of financial support, loss of society, comfort, care, protection, marital relations, affection and companionship of her husband."
Lawsuit statement for Tabitha Speer, widow of U.S. special forces Sgt. Christopher Speer

Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press   Tabitha Speer and Sgt. Layne Morris allege Omar Khadr, then 15, was responsible for the death of Sgt. Christopher Speer and Morris’s injuries in July 2002.

 

Omar Khadr's guilty plea to five war crimes he was charged with, made before an American military commission in Guantanamo Bay in October of 2010 forms the basis of a lawsuit newly launched by the widow of a U.S. special forces soldier killed in Afghanistan and an American soldier who was blinded by a grenade thrown by Canadian-born Omar Khadr, 15 years of age at the time.

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

The lawsuit charges that Tabitha Speer and Sgt. Layne Morris hold Omar Khadr, now 27, and serving out the final years of his prison sentence in Canada's Bowden Institution in Alberta, is guilty of having caused the death of Ms. Speer's husband, and Sgt. Morris's loss of vision, in 2002 in Afghanistan. Omar Khadr had admitted to murder and attempted murder in violation of the rule of war, along with three additional war crimes.

"We took his own very words. We do not think there is any basis for his denial", stated the pair's lawyer, Don Winder, from Salt Lake City. Mr. Khadr, it is well enough known, was anxious to return to Canada to serve out his time there, where his family had returned from Pakistan, as Canadian citizens. In his desire to be quit of the United States he made that guilty plea.

While Tabitha Speer and St. Morris are suing Mr. Khadr for almost $50-million, Mr. Khadr plans to sue the federal government for alleged violations of his rights by Canadian intelligence personnel while he was under detention by the United States. He wishes to recover $20-million from the Government of Canada (Canadian taxpayers) for purportedly abridging his Constitutional rights.

The lawsuit launched against Omar Khadr refers to him as a terrorist, to be held to account for his violent jihadist actions as an Islamist, an fundamental Islamic duty of the faithful which his late father had groomed him for. And since the suit requests for triple damages as punitive awards, the final amount could very well exceed over $130 million.

Handout   Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, circa 2009. Khadr pleaded guilty to war crimes at Guantanamo Bay in October 2010 and now faces a lawsuit by alleged victims.

 

And, said the Utah attorney for Ms. Speer and Sgt. Morris, Canadian anti-terrorism laws would ensure a judgement against Mr. Khadr would be enforceable in Canada.