Abdullah Khadr walked out of a Toronto courtroom a free man Wednesday after an Ontario judge denied a U.S. request to send him to Boston to face terrorism charges.
Extradition orders to the U.S. are rarely denied, but Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer ruled Wednesday that “this was an exceptional case on many levels.”
The ruling comes just days before Khadr’s younger brother Omar goes on trial for war crimes in Guantanamo.
Reading passages from his 62-page decision, Speyer told a Toronto court that setting aside the extradition order was a “remedy of last resort” required in this case due to the fact that Khadr was illegally held and interrogated.
Khadr’s lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney had argued that extraditing Khadr would mean Canada supports countries that violate international law.
Pakistan was paid a $500,000 (US) bounty to arrest Khadr in 2004. He was held without charges for 14 months and interrogated by intelligence and police agents from the U.S., Pakistan and Canada.
The Boston case against the 29-year-old Khadr was based on his own statements made in Pakistan and then repeated in Toronto upon his return in 2005.
Khadr claimed that Pakistani agents beat him during his first two weeks of captivity and to stop the abuse he told them what they wanted to hear.
Khadr, the eldest son of reputed Al Qaeda financier Ahmed Said Khadr, has been in Toronto’s West Detention Centre since December 2005, fighting his extradition. He has been indicted in Boston on charges of supplying weapons to Al Qaeda when he was living in Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks.
Pakistani forces killed Khadr’s father in 2003 and his mother and siblings returned to Toronto.
Government lawyers Matthew Sullivan and Howard Piafsky had urged Speyer to be skeptical of Khadr’s allegations of physical abuse while held in Pakistan.
An extradition hearing does not determine whether a Canadian is guilty of the charges, only if there is plausible evidence that would allow a citizen to be tried in the U.S.
Government lawyers said it is too early to say whether the decision will be appealed.
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