page_title: Omar Khadr
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Omar Khadr / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Omar Khadr, copyright released into the public domain by the Khadr family in Toronto.
context_page_description: Omar Ahmed Sayid Khadr is a Canadian who at the age of 15 was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for ten years, during which he pleaded guilty to the murder of U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer and other charges. He later appealed his conviction, claiming that he falsely pleaded guilty so that he could return to Canada where he remained in custody for three additional years. Khadr sued the Canadian government for infringing his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; this lawsuit was settled in 2017 with a CA$10.5 million payment and an apology by the federal government.
  Born in Canada, Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, who was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. On July 27, 2002, at age 15, Khadr was severely wounded during fighting between U.S. soldiers and Taliban fighters in the village of Ayub Kheyl; Khadr is alleged to have thrown the grenade that killed Speer. After he was captured and detained at the Bagram Airfield, he was sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. During his detention, Khadr was interrogated by both Canadian and US intelligence officers.
context_section_description: Khadr was born in Toronto on September 19, 1986, to Ahmed Khadr and Maha el-Samnah, Egyptian and Palestinian immigrants who became Canadian citizens. The Khadr family had moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1985, where his father worked for charities helping Afghan refugees.
  He spent his childhood moving back and forth between Canada and Pakistan. He had six siblings and his mother wanted to raise their family outside of Canada, as she disliked some of its Western social influences.
  In 1992, Khadr's father was severely injured while in Logar, Afghanistan. Following the injury, the family moved to Toronto so he could recover. Omar enrolled at ISNA Elementary School for Grade 1.
  In 1995, after the family's return to Pakistan, Omar's father, Ahmed, was arrested and accused of financially aiding the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. During his imprisonment, Ahmed was hospitalised following a hunger strike, before being released a year later due to lack of evidence.
  In 1996, Khadr's father moved his family to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he worked for an NGO.
  Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Omar's mother and his siblings feared U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, and retreated toward the Pakistani mountains, where the father visited infrequently.
  In early 2002, Khadr was living in Waziristan with his mother and younger sister. At one point, he was forced to wear a burqa and disguise himself as a girl to avoid scrutiny, an act that upset him. When his father returned, Omar asked to be allowed to stay at a group home for young men, despite his mother's protests. His father agreed, and a month later allowed Omar to accompany a group of Arabs associated with Abu Laith al-Libi who needed a Pashto translator during their stay in Khost.
  According to the April 2007 charges from the military commission, Khadr received "one-on-one" weapons training in June 2002, and his visits to his mother and sister became less frequent.
caption: Khadr and his mother
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