In a unanimous opinion, the Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a decision to stop extradition proceedings for an alleged Al-Qaeda arms supplier, Abdullah Khadr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is the the older brother of Omar Khadr, the youngest Guantanamo detainee. Omar was sentenced to 40 years in prison last fall after pleading guilty to acts committed in 2002, when he was 15. According to an AFP story, their father, Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in Pakistan in October 2003, was described by U.S. military analysts in Wikileaked documents as "a senior Al-Qaeda financier and reportedly the fourth in command underneath Osama bin Laden in the Al-Qaeda organization."
The Attorney General of Canada argued for extradition on behalf of the United States, whose case centers around statements Khadr is alleged to have made in 2005 to the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about being involved in an assassination plot against the prime minister of Pakistan. Khadr claims the confessions were false and were made while he was being tortured and threatened with harm to his family.
The National Post says that the Canadian federal government has 60 days to decide if it wants to seek a leave of appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
