LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR Abdullah Khadr was arrested by the RCMP Saturday on a warrant from U.S. authorities and his mother, Zaynab Elsamnah, right, was taken into custody.
Posted on 12/18/2005 6:27:25 AM PST by fanfan
Abdullah Khadr, the eldest son of a reputed Canadian Al Qaeda financier, was arrested by the RCMP yesterday on terrorism-related charges at the request of American authorities.
The 25-year-old Canadian recently returned from Pakistan where he was held for 14 months without charge. He was arrested last night after agreeing to meet an RCMP officer at a McDonald's near his Scarborough apartment, his relatives said last night.
His mother, Maha Elsamnah tried to intervene in the arrest and was also taken into custody, but later released without charges. Khadr's brother, 22-year-old Abdurahman was also at the fast food restaurant and took pictures of the arrest with his cell phone camera.
An RCMP spokesperson confirmed the arrest last night but said they were only acting at the behest of American authorities.
“We arrested Mr. Khadr on the grounds of a provisional warrant issued by the department of justice, after the US government petitioned the Canadian courts to allow for his arrest,” said Corporal Michele Paradis.
“The process had nothing to do with the RCMP, we received it today and acted on it.”
But according to court documents the RCMP has been investigating both Khadr and his sister Zaynab, who also returned to Canada earlier this year, under terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code introduced in 2001.
Khadr's Edmonton-based lawyer Dennis Edney said last night Khadr now faces two charges: possession and use of a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence and conspiracy to murder a U.S. national outside of the U.S.
According to Western intelligence services, Khadr ran an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. But in an interview with the Star he claimed he's not a terrorist and only attended the notorious Khaldan camp in Afghanistan when he was 13.
“I just want everybody to know I have nothing to do with anything,” he said in an interview earlier this month.
Khadr was detained by Pakistani authorities in October 2004. Until his return to Canada Dec. 2, his whereabouts had been unknown.
The Toronto Star revealed the fact that Khadr had quietly returned, accompanied by Canadian officials. He was questioned at the airport by RCMP investigators, then dropped off at his grandparents' home in Scarborough and told he was a “free man,” according to his relatives and lawyer.
But a U.S. source told the Star that American authorities were looking to issuing a provisional warrant for Khadr's arrest.
The following week Khadr told the Star in an interview that he was tortured during the first 48 hours of his detention. He also described the visits he said he had from several Canadian and American security officials.
During that interview another lawyer representing Khadr, Nate Whitling, said if Khadr is charged, he would argue that any information provided during these interview sessions in Pakistan would be inadmissible due to his harsh treatment and the fact that he was never charged or provided a lawyer.
Khadr is the eldest son of Egyptian-born Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in a battle with Pakistani forces in 2003. There are six children in the family that was raised traveling between Scarborough, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They grew up alongside Osama bin Laden's children.
Khadr is being held at Toronto's West Detention Centre and will appear in court this morning for a bail hearing.
LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR Abdullah Khadr was arrested by the RCMP Saturday on a warrant from U.S. authorities and his mother, Zaynab Elsamnah, right, was taken into custody.
Canada Ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.
The Mounties always get their man, King!
Well, pretty much...
Sort of a broad based blanket denial.
Sheesh. This Khadr family story reminds me of Krekar over in Norway. Arrest, release, arrest, release...
Hee, hee.
There will be a bail hearing and then an extradition hearing.
I will be surprised if the extradirion hearing is successful in ordering this piece of trash to the USA.
Please keep us updated on the outcome of his bail hearing.
See ya ... and take your mama with ya.
"It's just a couple of sheep herders
up on Brokeback Mountain, King."
Sheesh. The RCMP might as well say, "We only made this arrest because of the Americans. We wouldn't have done this otherwise."
OK.
We're busy with elections up here, but I'll try.
:-)
Did they catch him mid-way through a double order "Mc-Rib" sandwich????
Those Mounties that had their pictures taken with that cell phone better watch their !##$#. They may get a visit they and I don't want.
LOL.
With a side order of bacon left over from the mornings bacon and egg McMuffins.
As Sgt. Preston was heard to say to his faithful dog at the end of every show, "Well, King, this case is closed."
With their deeply entrenched appeasement mentality, they probably actually think this is going to protect them from a terrorist attack....
Everytime I see that smug little Khadr face, I just want to punch it.
Go Mounties!
Oh I hope so!!!!
Bush is showing he knows how to make a Liberal paint himself into a corner!
I love it!!!!!!!!!!
Now THIS is a master of plausible deniability!!!
All that great training in Afghanistan I guess.
;-)
bump for publicity
More information on the fellow just arrested:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/khadr/interviews/abdullah.html
And here's the website for the PBS Frontline episode on his brother
(if I understand the family tree correctly):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/khadr/
Thanks for your help FRiend.
:-)
Ping to post #25
:-)
If the Liberals were not provided with a karaoke chamber by the Canadian media, they would be naked on stage.
I hope so too. We need the kick in the arse. In fact, let's jut put the President in charge of the Mounties, that way they could actually be allowed to do their jobs properly.
Oh yeah, rot in hell Khadr, you piece of human excrement!!
Okay, I must confess, I'm exhausted and after the morning talk shows, I spent the day in my robe and jammies watching Crocodile Dundee 1 and 2 with my kids (though I did manage to do the dishes, LOL!), so I'm not up to speed on Khadr (I'll read now), but I think you're right on this.
I tried to call a local talk show--to say that the U.S. has "no conscience" is absurd--in Colorado we had to pass emissions tests every year; one year we had to pay $400 in repairs before we could drive our car.
Both Martin and Clinton should be ashamed of themselves--they were both leeching off the other to get their picture on the front page of the paper, both to score respective political points. Disgusting.
Related story about the Khadr family ... [also involves the Benevolence International case that Matt Cooper, Judith Miller were/are embroiled in concurrent with the Plame/Niger snowjob the Media's been doing.]
Khadr tied to al-Qaeda as far back as 1988
National Post ^ | Februari 01 2003 | Stewart Bell
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/833863/posts
Posted on 02/01/2003 4:50:44 AM PST by knighthawk
Canada bankrolled man's aid agency during that time
U.S. authorities have tied a Canadian aid worker to the al-Qaeda terrorist network as far back as 1988, almost a decade before the Canadian government cut off funding to his Ottawa-based Muslim charity.
Evidence unsealed by a U.S. judge in Chicago shows Ahmed Said Khadr had dealings with senior al-Qaeda leaders while being financed by the Canadian International Development Agency.
Although CIDA stopped giving aid money to Mr. Khadr in 1997 after he was arrested for allegedly bombing an embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, the documents allege he was working with al-Qaeda long before that.
The disclosure that CIDA bankrolled an active al-Qaeda member for at least nine years could prove embarrassing for the government aid agency as it prepares to celebrate International Development Week.
The National Post revealed this week that CIDA officials are worried they might be indirectly supporting terrorism.
Mr. Khadr is a key figure in the Canadian al-Qaeda network.
He uses the alias al-Kanadi, or the Canadian, and is designated by the United Nations as a high-ranking al-Qaeda member. He has not been seen since the Sept. 11 attacks but two of his Canadian sons, Omar and Abdul, were captured in Afghanistan, where they were fighting with al-Qaeda.
Mr. Khadr's name appears in a 101-page statement filed by U.S. prosecutors in the case of Enaam Arnaout, the head of Benevolence International, an Illinois-based charity that authorities claim served as a fundraising front for Osama bin Laden.
The document describes a dispute that broke out in 1988 between Abu Hassan al Madani, one of Osama bin Laden's chief financiers, and Mr. Khadr, the director of Human Concern International, over a project involving Benevolence.
Mr. al Madani had accused Mr. Khadr "of having suspicious contacts with non-Islamic agencies," it said. "The dispute was submitted to secret arbitration before Dr. Fadhl -- a leading Islamic scholar for the Al Jihad organization headed by Ayman Al Zawahiri -- and Abu Hajer al Iraqi, both of whom served on the fatwah committee of al-Qaeda."
The outcome of the tussle is not explained but the description shows that Mr. Khadr had contact with senior al-Qaeda members at a time his activities were being subsidized by the Canadian government. CIDA gave $325,000 to Human Concern between 1980 and 1997.
Canadian intelligence agents claim that in 1995 he funnelled money through Human Concern to finance a bombing in Pakistan that was orchestrated by Al Zawahiri, bin Laden's second-in-command. Seventeen died. Only after the blast did CIDA cut off its grants to Human Concern.
The U.S. Justice Department filed the evidence on Jan. 6, but it was sealed by Judge Suzanne Conlon after defence lawyers argued it was prejudicial to Mr. Arnaout, who goes to trial on Feb. 10 on charges he provided aid to terrorists.
The U.S. document is the first to make a link between Mr. Khadr and Benevolence International, which opened an office in Ontario in 1992 to raise money from Canadian Muslims through mosques and student groups.
While the Syrian-born Mr. Arnaout, 40, claimed to be running a humanitarian aid organization, U.S. authorities say Benevolence was actually funding Islamic-inspired terror campaigns in such places as Chechnya and Afghanistan.
U.S. authorities raided the charity in December, 2001. The newly unsealed document describes a telephone conversation five months later between Solange Waithe, director of the Canadian branch of Benevolence International, and Mr. Arnaout concerning an investigating by Pakistani intelligence.
BenevolenceInternational, bif, terrorcharities, ontario, terrorcharity, chechnya, ArSolange Waithenaout, charity, Waithe, 1992, Al Zawahiri, CIDA, Human Concern, Abu Hassan al Madani, almadani, Enaam Arnaout, Dr. Fadhl, fadhl, Al Jihad, Ayman Al Zawahiri, AbuHajeralIraqi, both of whom served on the fatwah committee, cida
What a tangle of connections.
That's interesting.
Thanks for the ping piasa.
Ping to post #19
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