by Judi McLeod
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
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Toronto, ON-- Zaynab Khadr claims she didn't know that terrorist Osama bin Laden would attend her wedding in Pakistan. Now the 25-year-old says she didn't know clips of bin Laden's voice calling for the killing of americans were on the laptop computer seized by the RCMP at Pearson airport when she returned to Canada last February.
alleged to be among Khadr's RCMP-confiscated possessions are downloaded clips of bin Laden's voice and songs–one entitled "I am a Terrorist". On the laptop is also a video clip of a 2003 attack on a compound used by Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi arabia and cassettes about insurgent attacks in afghanistan. Canada, Khadr's adopted country has troops stationed in afghanistan.
When a chador-clad Khadr quietly slipped back into Toronto on February 17, 2005, she said she had returned to Canada to lobby for the rights of her two brothers, 18-year-old Omar, who is Canada's only known detainee at Guatanamo Bay and her brother, abdullah, whose whereabouts have been unknown since October, 2004.
Her father, the late ahmed Said Khadr, officially identified as Canada's highest-ranking member of al Qaeda, was sprung from a Pakistani prison when former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien successfully intervened on his behalf through then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
With a longsuit for inflammatory, anti-american rhetoric, Zaybab Khadr told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2004 that americans "deserve to feel a pain similar to what they inflict on others."
When mainstream Canadians complained, Chrétien's successor Prime Minister Paul Martin reminded them that as a "Canadian citizen", Khadr had a right to her opinion.
The daughter of the patriarch of Canada's first family of terrorists plays down her association to the world's number one terrorist, starting with his attendance at her wedding.
"I mean we don't even write invitations for weddings," Khadr told the Toronto Star in a sympathetic interview shortly after her return to Canada. "We just say there's a wedding and everybody's invited and everybody passes it on."
If bin Laden didn't get the bride's wedding invitation in a buff coloured envelope, neither is anything found on her laptop except for personal pictures and a few "cartoons" really hers. The laptop, she says, was bought secondhand about seven months before coming to Canada.
"I think it's my right to bring what I want since I'm not breaking any laws, so I decided to bring them," she said. "although I don't know what's on them, I still thought I'd bring them."
although the RCMP must go before a Toronto judge this Friday seeking permission to allow them to continue doing a forensic evaluation of the seized materials, Khadr's written records are being studied by the RCMP's behavioural sciences unit for a "psychological analysis" to determine if she is a "threat to society".
In reporter Michelle Shephard's sympathetic Toronto Star interview last February, Khadr's personal email (zak79up@yahoo.ca) with an invitation extended to Canadians objecting to her views was published by the Star.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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