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December 23, 2005
Canada: Suspected Islamist Refused Bail
We mentioned on Sunday 18th December that the son of an Islamist activist and financier for al-Qaeda was arrested in Toronto on Saturday night.
25 year old Abdullah Khadr (pictured) was arrested on account of "possession and use of a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence that is conspiracy to murder a U.S. national outside of the U.S." according to Dennis Ednay, his lawyer.
Today, news is breaking from Reuters, Canada's CBC Toronto, and Canada's National Post that Khadr has been denied bail today.
After being released from a Pakistani prison, where he stated he had been incarcerated for fourteen months, Khadr returned to Canada on the 7th of this month. He is being held on an extradition request by the US government, who suspect he has links to al-Qaeda. His sister Zaynab was apparently also the subject of inquiries by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCPM).
His 66 year old grandmother had offered to use her house, valued at $300,000 as part of a bail bond, but this was rejected by the judge in the Toronto court hearing, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy.
Khadr is wanted, according to court documents, in Massachusetts for possessing the "destructive device". He is accused of buying $20,000 (US) of mortar rounds, landmines, grenades and AK-47 ammunition, for use by al-Qaeda militants in eastern Afghanistan.
Despite the good intentions of Abdullah Khadr's grandmother, who broke down when asked if she knew of the crimes her grandson was accused of, his family background is certainly not that of a normal Torontonian.
His Egyptian-born father, Ahmed Siad Khadr (pictured above, right), moved to Canada in 1997, and is said to have been a founding father and financier of al-Qaeda. He was killed in Pakistan two years ago, when a house used by al-Qaeda was targeted by a helicopter gunship. Ahmed Siad Khadr had a son with him, Abdul Karim Khadr, and he was paralysed from the waist down in the same shoot-out in Pakistan. He remained in Pakistan until April 2004, when his mother brought him back to Canada.
Abdurahman Khadr (pictured left), a brother of Abdullah, was arrested in November 2001, suspected of being an al-Qaeda member, and in early 2003 he was taken to Guantanamo Bay. He was released and sent to Afghanistan in July thta year, whence he returned to Canada in October 2003.
Abdullah's younger brother, 17-year old Omar Khadr (pictured right) is still in Guantanamo. He was arrested in Khost, Afghanistan in July 2002, when he was only 15. He was accused of killing a US serviceman.
Sister Zaynab Khadr, who like their Palestinian-born mother Maha Khadr wears a hijab and a nikab, showing only her eyes, is alleged to have helped Abdullah Khadr run an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, though Abdullah maintains that he only visited the camp once, when he was 14.
CBC Toronto state that Khadr's bail hearing will now be reheard on Thursday, 29th December. CBC state that an affidavit was unsealed this week, which stated that Abdullah Khadr had admitted in July, while in jail in Pakistan, that he had bought weapons for al-Qaeda. The affidavit further alleges that he admitted to being involved with a plot to assassinate Pakistan's prime minister.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 23, 2005 5:20 PM
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