Widow goes after US$8m that Canada will give ex-Guantanamo prisoner who killed her husband

The lawyer for the widow of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan said Tuesday they have filed an application so that any money paid by the Canadian government to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner convicted of killing him will go toward the widow and another US soldier injured.

Lawyer Don Winder made the comments as a decision by the Canadian government to apologise and give millions of dollars to Omar Khadr came under mounting criticism.

An official familiar with the deal said Tuesday that Khadr will receive C$10.5 million (US$8 million). The official was not authorised to discuss the deal publicly before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. The government and Khadr’s lawyers negotiated the deal last month.

The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by US troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, US Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer and injury of Sergeant Layne Morris, who lost an eye. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo, where he was its youngest prisoner, and was ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission.

He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody. He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.