The revelation suggests one explanation for why the government launched a wide-ranging hunt for the source of the leak
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not yet aware a $10.5-million payment to Omar Khadr had been finalized when news of the settlement leaked to the media in the summer of 2017, an internal report shows — suggesting one explanation for why the government launched a wide-ranging hunt for the source of the leak.
Khadr had been pursuing a lawsuit against the Canadian government since 2004, and in 2013 he moved to significantly expand it and sought $20 million in damages. The Supreme Court of Canada has consistently ruled that Khadr’s constitutional rights were violated over his decade-long American detention in Guantanamo Bay and the participation of Canadian security services in interrogating him.
The report’s account that Trudeau had not yet been informed about the settlement’s conclusion is corroborated by an interview given by Trudeau’s then-principal secretary at the time, Gerald Butts, to National Post columnist John Ivison for his forthcoming book Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister.
Public servants attempted to transfer the $10.5-million in settlement money on the morning of July 4, less than a day after the story leaked. But due to a wrongly-entered code in the government’s payment system, banking errors caused the actual transfer of funds to be delayed until July 5.
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