Just as I predicted, the Canadian media is turning convicted terrorist Omar Khadr into a celebrity.
Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star, teamed up with CBC, the state-run broadcaster, to put out a documentary about Khadr that airs tonight.
Except it's more like propaganda than a documentary.
And couldn't be more pro-Khadr if it had been produced by the Taliban.
In a long promotional article that ran in the Star this morning, the word "terrorist" is only used sarcastically, mocking the idea that Khadr should be referred to as one.
The Star calls Khadr merely a "translator," but he was really a bomb maker, as we've seen in video evidence.
Believe it or not, the Star actually refer to Khadr's father -- a fundraiser and recruiter for radical Islam -- as "a humanitarian worker"!
If you really want to learn the truth about Omar Khadr, visit our KhadrFacts.com website for court documents and other evidence the Canadian media doesn't want you to see.
(photo: Toronto Star)
READ The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, Ezra Levant's new book about domestic terrorism and radicalization.
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CBC, please let the courts decide..stick to your job and report the news and leave the junk to the tabloids….don’t waste tax dollars.
Joan, your mentioning the wrongful convictions of Canadian citizens like Morin, Truscott and Milgaard is an excellent point. David Milgaard lost 23 years of his life being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He was only 17 when he was convicted. Truscott was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a female classmate when he was only 14 (commuted to a life sentence). He ultimately received $6.5 million in compensation from the Ontario government. Maher Arar spent a year imprisoned in Syria, his country of origin, and claims he was subjected to torture during that time.
Of the 80+ witnesses that testified in the O’Connor Commission, Maher Arar was not even among them, and none of his claims of torture were ever given under oath. I’m not calling Arar a terrorist or a liar, I’m just saying that in my view, he received a bit of a windfall compared to the level of compensation awarded to other Canadians like Truscott and Milgaard who experienced much worse for far longer. Whether Arar deserved compensation at all is a question I can’t answer, but I do feel that Canadian taxpayers should not have been held financially responsible for Arar’s rendition to Syria, his birth country, by U.S. officials.
Maher Arar is not Omar Khadr, and I am tired of people like Garry Wood making such ignorant comparisons. For one, Arar was cleared of having any links to terrorism, whereas Khadr pled guilty and admitted his direct involvement and culpability in terrorism-related war crimes, including murder. Omar Khadr was not a “child soldier”. He was almost 16-years-old when he took part in a firefight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban against U.S. soldiers. Even the United Nations seems to forget that its own Convention on the Rights of the Child is limited to “children” who haven’t attained the age of 15, which Khadr had. What’s more, the UN Convention is specifically worded so as not to preclude the possibility of such “children” volunteering. And I have yet to see any evidence that Omar Khadr was in any way coerced to do the things he did, or that he is even sorry for his actions.
Arar showed no physical or psychological symptoms of having been tortured.
When Canada picked him up upon his release from prison in Syria and asked if he’d been tortured, Arar joked the worst torture he endured was “being forced to wear ugly shoes”. Instead of wanting to go straight to the airport to get away from Syria, he insisted Canada first take him shopping in Syria so he could purchase a pair of Rockport shoes. I don’t know about you but if I’ve been tortured, I don’t want to hang around just in case. But Arar was perfectly comfortable shopping in Syria where, he later claimed, he’d just been tortured.
On the flight back to Canada, Arar denied ever being tortured. He said a couple of times, a guard struck his hand with a ruler like teachers used to sometimes do to students.
Thr RCMP report that the court found Arar suffered electrical torture. But listen to this. The court found that not because electricity was used to torture Arar but because he feared it might be. Apparently he was put into a room with some electrical wires but was never tortured with them.
I have no doubt the RCMP jumped the gun in the Arar case. They ought to have held off until they had the evidence they needed. But Arar was not tortured just like Khadr was not tortured.
Arar was never convicted of anything, so sure, maybe what happened to him is worth some compensation. But $10 million? No. That award was made for false allegations he was tortured.
Guy Paul Morin, Steven Truscott, David Milgaard, all falsely accused who suffered far more than Arar ever did got far less in compensation.
It is a crime to falsely claim damages for torture that never happened.
Stop awarding criminals tax-payer money, Canada!!
Why don’t you post here using your real name?
I can think for myself. I wish media would just let Khadr fade away. Don’t make him a celebrity.
But since that won’t happen, how about Ezra gets an interview with Khadr and/or with his family? Or if Edney won’t allow it, isn’t there some independent journalist out there who would do it and sell it to therebel.media?
Garry Wood; take note. See how it’s done properly, and that includes making reference to, and giving credit to, the source.
However, I think referendums on the controversial subjects could bolster the support necessary to carry a motion like cutting the CBC funding. It is something we do not do in this country . . . that I can remember.
This fluff piece was so offensive, that I’m still sorting through my initial anger and can’t even prepare a logical response. I am still reeling over an Alberta Justice granting Khadr judicial interim release, pending his utterly frivolous appeal of the U.S. military court conviction premised upon his pleading guilty to war crimes. So, à la Gary Wood, I thought I’d do a little cutting and pasting of my own. The following is my comment to the May 7, 2015 Macleans article by John Geddes about Khadr’s judicial release:
“Bail isn’t mentioned anywhere in the [Canadian] International Transfer of Offenders Act or the Treaty Between Canada and the United States of America on the Execution of Penal Sentences. Article 4 of the Treaty provides that the “Receiving State shall have no jurisdiction over any proceedings, regardless of their form, intended to challenge, set aside, or otherwise modify convictions or sentences handed down in the Sending State.” The ITOA states that a transfer may not have the effect “of invalidating a guilty verdict rendered, or a sentence imposed, by a foreign entity. The verdict and the sentence, if any, are not subject to any appeal or other form of review in Canada.”
There is no constitutionally enshrined right to bail, only the right to a reasonable opportunity to seek bail pending appeal as an aspect of fundamental justice. Once convicted, however, there is no longer any presumption of innocence and the onus is on the offender to show cause for why he or she should be released.
With respect, Justices Ross and Bielby got it wrong. Their interpretation of both the Treaty and ITOA leads to illogical results inconsistent with the clear purposes behind their enactment and the intentions of the legislating bodies.
First, the U.S.-Canada agreement over Khadr’s transfer to Canada to serve out his criminal sentence was conditional upon there being no prospect of appeal, and on the mutual understanding that Canada has no jurisdiction over any proceedings intended to challenge, modify or in any way review his sentence. Yet the Justices’ consideration and evaluation of the competing factors in Khadr’s bail hearing necessarily involved a review of the original conviction expressly prohibited by the governing statute, especially on the third branch of the test for bail pending appeal.
An appeal does not deprive the original conviction and sentence of its legal effect. Simply determining that an appeal is not frivolous (the first branch, not a particularly onerous standard) does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the appeal is more likely than not to succeed. This is the standard of proof an offender must meet in order to satisfy the third branch of the test, whether judicial interim release would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Where the crimes are serious, for example involving murder, as in this case, the threshold is much higher.
As Justice Wakeling notes [in R v Jensen, 2014 ABCA 435, para 42]:
“Section 515(10) of the Criminal Code, the provision governing judicial interim release before trial, directs the court to consider the “apparent strength of the prosecutor’s case”. I see no reason why Parliament would consider this an important consideration only in a pre-trial bail application and not in a post-conviction bail application42. No logical explanation for such disparate treatment is apparent to me. Given that the applicant no longer enjoys the benefit of the presumption of innocence and is presumed to be guilty, the merits of the appeal should be a consideration of greater significance post-conviction.”
In my view, judicial consideration of the “strength of the prosecutor’s case” and evaluation of the likelihood of success of the appeal is equivalent to a “review” of the conviction itself, which is itself expressly barred by clear and unambiguous provisions of the ITOA. Further, where, as in this case, the offender has pled guilty to the offences, even entertaining such a review brings the administration of justice into disrepute and undermines the fundamental principle of comity that informs the Canada-U.S. Treaty governing transfer of Canadian offenders.
The U.S. criminal justice system, and especially military courts, have essentially the same requirements for acceptance of guilty pleas as under section 606 of the Criminal Code of Canada. It’s called a “providency inquiry”. Khadr knew what he was doing when he pled guilty, but it obviously serves his interests (and the furthering of his $20,000,000 civil claim against the Canadian government) to now claim that he only did so under duress.
Finally, this is not a case where the governing law is antiquated and/or pre-dates the Charter-era, and the primary presumption of statutory interpretation is that the government does not make unconstitutional legislation. That ought to have been the starting point in this case.”
I urge people to actually read the law before weighing in with uninformed opinions. Having to keeping hearing the same kind of ignorant crap spewed by the pro-Khadr crowd, and knowing my own tax dollars have helped fund this latest insult to my intelligence, is even worse than listening to anti Bill C-51 “journalists” who likely haven’t even bothered to read the Bill before denouncing it.
Incidentally, for those who haven’t read it, Bill C-51 attempts to correct some of the problems with how sensitive information is shared between branches and divisions of the Canadian government and police organizations, as well as internationally, as a result of the Canadian inquiry into Maher Arar’s detention and rendition to Syria by the U.S. government.