page_title: Omar Khadr
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Omar Khadr / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: Remains of compound in Ab Kheyl following July 2002 firefight
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: The following day, soldiers including Silver returned to search the premises. Local villagers were believed to have taken away the bodies of the two men killed and given them an Islamic burial. They refused to disclose the location to the Americans, who wanted to identify the fighters.
  Believing that the wooden boards beneath the last-killed rifleman could have been used to cover an underground chamber, the soldiers used an excavator to tear down the walls of the buildings. They uncovered five boxes of rifle ammunition, two rockets, two grenades and three rocket-propelled grenades in the huts. Some had accidentally detonated while lying in the smouldering ruins. A plastic bag was discovered in the granary, containing documents, wires and a videocassette. OC-1's report claims the videotape was found in the main house, rather than the granary, and also mentioned detonators modelled as Sega game cartridges.
  The video shows Khadr toying with detonating cord as other men, including one later identified as Abu Laith al-Libi, assemble explosives in the same house that had been destroyed the day before by US forces. It is identifiable by its walls, rugs and the environment seen out the windows in the video. The men plant landmines while smiling and joking with the cameraman. A Voice of America report suggested that these were the landmines later recovered by American forces on a road between Gardez and Khost.
  The BBC said the US forces and militia had come under small arms fire; a US source noted it was the first time the enemy "had stood his ground" since Operation Anaconda had ended four months earlier.
  Hansen and Watt were both awarded a Bronze Star, for running forward under fire to retrieve two fallen bodies. Sources differ on whether these were wounded American soldiers, including Morris, or the two Afghan militiamen shot at the outset. The five wounded men were awarded Purple Hearts. Speer was moved from Bagram airbase to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he was removed from life support on August 7 and died; his heart, liver, lungs and kidneys were donated for use by other patients.
caption: Remains of the structure after bombing
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