Ahmed Khadr

Who was Ahmed Khadr?

Ahmed Said Khadr was an Egyptian-Canadian citizen and terrorist who had ties to a number of militant and Mujahideen leaders in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda. He was accused of being a "senior associate" and financier of al-Qaeda, but his family insisted he maintained the contacts to help his charity work.

Khadr worked with a number of charitable non-governmental organizations that served Afghan refugees and set up agricultural projects. He set up two orphanages for children whose parents had been killed in the Soviet invasion of the 1980s. He funded the construction of Makkah Mukarama Hospital in Afghanistan with his own savings, as well as seven medical clinics in the refugee camps of Pakistan.

Due to his prominent regional role, Khadr also helped negotiate peaceful compromises between rival warlords, power brokers and leaders. The Canadian government had considered him the country's highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda, and in 1999, the United Kingdom had his name added to a United Nations list of al-Qaeda members.

The Canadian attorney Dennis Edney, the lawyer for the Khadr family, has challenged the assumption that Khadr was a member of al-Qaeda, saying in 2001 that he was "really interested in obtaining one piece of evidence that would show indeed that Mr. Khadr was actually a terrorist. To me, it's just folklore." Khadr's imam in Canada, Ali Hindy, spoke after his death, saying "I don't think that he was al-Qaeda, but I think he felt that now he became part of Afghanistan." His friends described him as being "proud of [being a] Canadian citizen", while politicians and media have suggested that he disliked the country.