Mounties bring Khadr scion home
By COLIN FREEZE
Thursday, December 8, 2005 Posted at 5:28 PM EST
Globe and Mail Update
Abdullah Khadr has been called everything from a fugitive to a suicide bomber to a terrorist-training camp instructor. But in reality, he says, he is far less interesting.
“I was never in al-Qaeda,” the 24-year-old said this afternoon, in his first published interview since returning to Canada last week.
“I don't have a problem with anybody,” he said. “Why should anybody have a problem with me?”
The Canadian citizen, who was raised in Afghanistan, described himself simply as an aspiring businessman, currently walking in borrowed running shoes, as he tries to get his life back together. He was escorted back to Canada last Friday by an RCMP agent, he says, after being detained for the past 14 months in a Pakistani jail.
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Mr. Khadr argues he was wrongfully imprisoned, alleging Canadian and American agents were complicit in his ordeal, which included beatings and sexual humiliation at the hands of his Pakistani jailers. His captors, he said, asked about top al-Qaeda figures as well as many Canadian Muslims, including such notable former al-Qaeda suspects as Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, the El-Maati brothers and, of course, his infamous father, Ahmed Said Khadr.
Apart from his father, who was killed as a top terrorism suspect in Pakistan in 2003, the other Canadian suspects have all been released to live freely in Canada after suffering their own harrowing ordeals in overseas jails. Abdullah Khadr's own post-9/11 story is similar, and adds some more layers of grey to his the ongoing saga of his so-called “al-Qaeda family” and those who knew them.
There have been many misunderstandings, said Mr. Khadr, not the least of which being his one-time reputation as a terrorist training camp instructor.
“Instructor? Instructors have to be very, very inside,” he said, insisting that he only spent about a two-weeks at a training camp when he was about 13 years old. “I wasn't interested in that stuff, I was more interested in cars.”
The Khadr family story is a sprawling one, but one with a simple beginning. A fundamentalist father moved his family to Afghanistan during the 1980s mujahedeen battle against the Soviet invaders. While the family got to know Osama bin Laden, top al-Qaeda lieutenants, and various violent zealots, the Khadrs insist they limited themselves to helping orphans.
“I don't know if my father did any military work,” Abdullah Khadr said Thursday.
But intelligence agencies allege the family was in the thick of things during al-Qaeda's formative years, and the family was hunted during the U.S. invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The family headed to Pakistan, but one by one, the four Khadr brothers were arrested.
Only Omar Khadr, 19, remains in jail. He is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and has recently been charged with murder of a U.S. soldier killed in a 2002 gun battle with Afghan militants.
Abdurahman Khadr, 22, was allowed to return to Canada from Cuba, after co-operating with his captors. A third brother, 15-year-old Abdul Karim, came back to Canada crippled as a result of the battle that killed his father. During this period, family members made comments supporting al-Qaeda in a 2003 CBC TV documentary.
As for Abdullah, he laid low in Pakistan, before his arrest in the fall of 2004.
“Wrong time, wrong spot,” he said, adding he was picked up by Pakistani agents who moved to arrest a man he was with. “I was never in al-Qaeda and I do not support all — some — of all they are doing.”
While he said he likes the idea of Muslims living together in a single nation, civilians should never be killed for that purpose.
After his capture, he said, he was hooded, beaten and not allowed to sleep. He said his captors threatened to rape him with a stick. He said his captors laughed when he told them he wanted to go to the Canadian embassy.
Canadian and U.S. agents asked him questions he said, but never took part in the abuse. He said he was transferred to another jail in Pakistan, where he was visited by both consular officials and CSIS agents named “Mike and Bob.” He said he wasn't free to speak of any mistreatment because Pakistani officials were always present.
During the whole time, he said he was never charged with any crime.
This month, he said he was let go, accompanied back to Canada by a RCMP officer on the flight to Toronto. He said the Mountie he was travelling with lent him his cellphone to call his family once he arrived in Toronto. They were overjoyed to see him come home. |
