Abdullah Khadr

Abdullah Ahmed Said Khadr (عبد الله أحمد سعيد خضر; born April 30, 1981) is a Canadian citizen whose alleged ties to terrorism resulted in a protracted international legal issue.

Born in Canada, he grew up in Pakistan.

As the oldest son of Ahmed Khadr, who had ties to the Afghani Mujahideen, Abdullah was sent to the Khalden military training camp as a boy.

As a young adult, he allegedly became an arms dealer, selling illicit weapons to militants involved in the War in Afghanistan and related conflicts.

Abdullah Khadr's connections to terrorism resulted in the United States posting a $500,000 bounty on his head.

Abdullah Khadr was born in 1981 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada as the second child and first son to Ahmed Khadr and his wife Maha el-Samnah, while his father was still in graduate school in computer science.

He was the oldest of five boys, and had two sisters, one older and one much younger.

With his family, he moved as a child to Pakistan in 1985, where he largely grew up.

The family frequently returned to Canada to see grandparents and other relatives.

Abdullah and his siblings went to local schools and were also home-schooled by their mother.

As the oldest son, after becoming old enough to drive, Abdullah often drove his father around Pakistan for his work; the older man had been severely injured in an accident in 1992.

In 1994, Khadr was sent to Khalden training camp along with his younger brother Abdurahman, where he was given the alias Hamza.

Omar Nasiri later claimed to have met Abdullah in the camp's infirmary.

Khadr told Nasiri about seeing Afghans in Khost blown apart while trying to salvage an unexploded bomb.

Abdullah did not remember the encounter.

The two brothers fought constantly at the camp; one day their argument became so heated that they pointed guns at each other, screaming, before a trainer stepped between them.

In 1997, a dispute between the brothers was mediated by the al-Qaeda leader Abu Laith al-Libi, who earned their confidence and respect by telling them about the city of Dubai and imported Ferrari cars.

Abdurahman later described him as "really cool."

In 2000, Khadr allegedly had contact with a "high level member of al-Qaeda" who took the 19-year-old with him to purchase weapons for fighting against the Northern Alliance militants and supplying an Afghan training camp.

Following the American invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, the family split up.

Their mother took the youngest children, Omar and a daughter, into the mountains in Waziristan, in order to be further away from potential targets for US bombing.

In 2002, his sister Zaynab took their younger brother Abdulkareem to Lahore with her while seeking medical aid for her two-year-old daughter Saferai.

Abdullah later joined his siblings in Lahore, as he needed surgery on his nose.

After his father Ahmed Khadr was killed on the border by Pakistani security forces in October 2003, Abdullah allegedly continued his trade in weapons.

He was captured by the Pakistani military in 2004.

The Pakistani government refused to extradite Khadr to the United States, but eventually struck an extradition deal with Canada.

A Taliban spokesman said that the January 26, 2004 suicide bomber who killed Cpl. Jamie Murphy in Kabul was "Mohammed", the son of a Canadian purportedly named Abdulrahman Khadr.

The similar names led analysts to speculate the bomber had been Abdullah; he was the only son of the Khadr family whose whereabouts were then unknown.

DNA samples from the remains of the bomber later proved it was not Khadr.

When interviewed for the 2004 documentary Son of al Qaeda, shown on PBS in the United States, Khadr acknowledged attending the Khalden training camp as a youth.

But he said that a ten-year-old learning to fire an AK-47 was as common in Afghanistan then as it was for a Canadian child to learn to play hockey.

Richard J. Griffin, Assistant Secretary of State (Diplomatic Security) for the United States later called Khadr "one of the world's most dangerous men."

He was repatriated to Canada in 2005, and shortly after was arrested on an extradition warrant to the United States.

A lengthy case ensued to prevent his further extradition.

In their December 2005 indictment, United States officials alleged that in 2003, Ahmed Khadr was asked to organise militants operating near the border of Shagai, Pakistan.

He asked his son, 22-year-old Abdullah Khadr, to help him procure weapons, as the younger man had some experience.

According to the US indictment, Khadr procured weapons for his father, and became an arms dealer, selling weapons to other militants and earning about $5000 in profit on the transactions.

They involved approximately $20,000 worth of mortar rounds, landmines, grenades and 7.62×39mm AK-47 ammunition.

It was concluded by an appeal to the highest court in Ontario; the judges unanimously decided in October 2011 in favor of the lower court to refuse the extradition request.

Khadr was released from custody after 4½ years.