Ahmed Khadr - Health & Education Projects International

Health & Education Projects International

Trying to distance themselves from the controversy, HCI issued a statement in December, stating that Khadr and his colleague Helmy el-Sharief no longer worked for the organisation. Khadr then founded his own charity, Health & Education Projects International which was located in the Kart-e-Parwan district of Kabul and listed the Canadian Salahedin Mosque as a partner. American prosecutors have alleged the new group, while collecting $70,000 in donations, supported Afghan training camps. In July, Khadr met with bin Laden for the first time, as the latter was beginning construction on a large house.

In 1997 while living in the Pathan district of Peshawar, Khadr began visiting Nazim Jihad, bin Laden's family home in Jalalabad. In September, the Khadrs moved into a 3-room house owned by Zaffar Rehman, to whom they paid $100 monthly rent. At an unspecified time during his life in Pakistan, Khadr made use of his Masters' Degree and provided computer training and systems "for the government employees from 14 departments".

In May 1998, Essam Marzouk and Mohammed Zeki Mahjoub were also introduced to each other at the home of Khadr's in-laws while he was in Toronto. Also that year, Mahmoud Jaballah met Khadr, having invited him to share a cup of tea and discuss their mutual experiences in Peshawar, Pakistan after Khadr's mother-in-law took his wife grocery shopping. At some point, Mohammad Harkat met Khadr in Ottawa and the two of them shared a van back to Toronto. Harkat claims that he met Khadr through his roommate Mohamed El Barseigy, and that Khadr was silent during most of the trip, and his only advice to Harkat was "tell the truth to immigration authorities". Harkat and Jaballah would both later be jailed on security certificates which cited their contact with Khadr as a factor in their detention.

In June 1998, the family moved into Nazim Jihad while Ahmed was away; but were only there a short time before bin Laden moved and didn't invite the family to accompany him. He caved to the demands of his "problem child", Abdurahman, and purchased him a horse of his own.

That year, Pakistan renewed its claims that Khadr was involved in the embassy bombing, accused him of money laundering and smuggling and suggested he may have been connected to the year's simultaneous bombings of American embassies.

Reports suggest that when Pakistani forces stormed the apartment of an Algerian named Abu Elias in Lahore, Khadr was actually present but was either not recognised by the troops, or allowed to leave.

In 1999, Khadr met with bin Laden again to try to mitigate hostilities between bin Laden, the Taliban and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom Ahmed had recently met in Iran. That year, the United Kingdom submit his name to be put on a United Nations list of individuals believed to finance terrorism, but refused to share any evidence with Canadian officials. He was subsequently sanctioned, and UN states were forbidden from commerce with him.

In January 2001, Khadr's name was added to a United Nations list of individuals who supported terrorism associated with Bin Laden.

Later that year, Egyptian forces surrounded Khadr's house in Peshawar, and requested that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence forces offer assistance in capturing the man they still believed had knowledge of the Embassy bombing in Islamabad. Instead, the ISI contacted the Taliban, who sent a diplomatic car to pick up Khadr and bring him into Afghanistan.