Ahmed Khadr

Ahmed Khadr

An Egyptian-Canadian terrorist and patriarch of the Khadr family, Sheikh Ahmed Said Khadr (Arabic: أحمد سعيد خضر) (March 1, 1948–October 2, 2003) had close ties to a number of militant and Mujahideen leaders, including Osama bin Laden, which saw him accused of being a "senior associate" and financier of al-Qaeda, while his family insisted that he maintained the contacts to help his charity work. As Mohammad Mahjoub defended himself to authorities in 1998, "Everyone knows Khadr".

Khadr worked with a number of charitable non-governmental organizations serving Afghan refugees, and setting up agricultural projects. He set up two orphanages for children whose parents had been killed in the Soviet invasion, and 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 role in the region, he also helped negotiate peaceful compromises between rival warlords, power brokers and leaders, which his family believes angered Western countries who hoped the sides would simply kill each other. The Canadian government had considered him the country's highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda, and the United Kingdom had his name added to a United Nations list of al-Qaeda members in 1999.

Canadian attorney Dennis Edney, the lawyer for the Khadr family, has challenged the tendency to simply assume Khadr was a member of al-Qaeda stating in 2001 that he would "be 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." His Canadian Imam 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 Canadian citizen", while politicians and media have suggested that he disliked the country.

Khadr was killed along with al-Qaeda and Taliban members in a shootout with Pakistani security forces near the Afghanistan border. Following his death, his family moved back to Canada where they remain today.