Papers: Canadian Suspect Confessed to Al Qaeda Weapons Purchase

TORONTO – A Canadian terror suspect confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for Al Qaeda to use against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a court filing Monday.

In an court affidavit in Toronto, where Abdullah Khadr appeared at a preliminary hearing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corp. Richard Jenkins wrote that Khadr admitted ties to senior Al Qaeda members and confessed to buying guns and rocket launchers for them in Afghanistan. Khadr also admitted to a role in an unspecified plot to assassinate Pakistan's prime minister.

According to the affidavit, it is alleged that his father and some of his brothers had fought for al-Qaida and even stayed with the terror network's leader, Usama bin Laden.

Khadr, 24, who entered no plea at the hearing, faces extradition to the United States on charges of possessing, and conspiracy to possess, a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Boston, where the charges were filed. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

He is alleged to have bought AK-47 and mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and containers of mine components for Al Qaeda. The weapons purchases were made at the request of his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian who was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani helicopter fired on a house where he was staying with senior Al Qaeda operatives, authorities said.

The affidavit said he received military training at a camp in Afghanistan for four months in the mid-1990s and that he continued buying arms beyond 2003 after his father died. Pakistani intelligence officers picked him up in a car in Islamabad on Oct. 12, 2004, and he was returned to Canada earlier this month.

On Sunday, defense lawyer Dennis Edney accused the U.S. of participating in the unspecified "abuse" of Abdullah Khadr in a Pakistani prison.

The affidavit said Abdullah Khadr claimed that he was tortured by Pakistani authorities shortly after his detention. American authorities have said they did not play a role in any alleged mistreatment of Abdullah Khadr while he was imprisoned.

All four of Khadr's brothers have been detained at various times and linked to terrorism.

One brother, 19-year-old Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian detainee at the U.S. camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. He faces trial on charges of murder and attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army medic.

Outside court, a younger brother, Abduraham, expressed frustration that U.S. law enforcement officials would not allow his family to live in peace.

"We've been in a war zone, what do you expect?" Abdurahman Khadr said. "We're back now and it seems we're still in a war zone because we're not being able to live peacefully — someone is always in, out, jailed, this, that."

Abdurahman has said he grew up in an "Al Qaeda family" but he swore off the family's radical beliefs and worked as an American agent in Guantanamo Bay.