Ottawa's silence called tacit approval of U.S. abuse of Canadian citizens

That Ottawa knew the U.S. paid a $500,000 bounty to Pakistan to capture Abdullah Khadr but kept quiet about it, despite the high risk of torture, is just the latest example of Canada's reluctance to stand up for its own, they said.

"What they certainly should be doing is speaking out about this type of conduct, especially when it's committed against a Canadian citizen," said Khadr's lawyer, Nate Whitling.

Court documents released Monday reveal that Canadian intelligence officers knew the U.S. had paid Pakistan for Toronto-born Khadr's capture knowing he would likely be tortured.

Whitling said he understood why Ottawa might want to keep that information secret at the request of the Americans but said Canadian intelligence agents crossed the line when they got involved.

"Canada also went out there and participated in this interrogation process and they took advantage of the situation themselves," Whitling said.

"The effect of that is to tacitly approve of what's being done to Mr. Khadr and to condone it and to encourage it."

In Ottawa on Tuesday, former general Romeo Dallaire said both Canada and the United States had sunk to the moral equivalent of terrorists by violating human rights and international conventions in their handling of Khadr's younger brother, Omar Khadr.

For six years, he has been detained by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay for allegedly killing an American soldier in Afghanistan when he was just 15.

Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, told a Commons committee that Omar Khadr was a child soldier who should be rehabilitated, not tried before a court that many countries condemn as illegal, and Canada should do everything it can to bring him home.

Previously published documents show that Canada deliberately sought to downplay Omar Khadr's age and he remains the only western prisoner at Guantanamo.

The Khadr patriarch, Ahmed, was a senior lieutenant to terror chief Osama bin Laden and moved his family to Afghanistan in the 1980s. In October 2003, the elder Khadr was killed by Pakistani forces in a firefight that left his youngest son paralyzed.

Dave Harris, former chief of strategic planning for Canada's spy agency, said it's important to remember the horrific terrorism backdrop to such cases.

When you have bombs going off or nails going through people, it's understandable countries might go to more extreme lengths to preserve their security, he said.

"It's not a black and white issue and that's part of the agony of our age, now," Harris said.

"It's one of the appalling facts of modern counter-terrorism life and survival that these things are no longer as clear as we would have prayed they might have been."

Still, Khadr's mother said Canada needs to be more vigorous in defending the interests of its citizens.

"I feel the Americans are just waiting for one single word or move from the Canadian government to send this boy back home," Maha Elsamnah said of Omar Khadr.

As happened with Abdulla Khadr, Canadian agents also interrogated Omar Khadr while he was in custody under widely condemned conditions.

"They didn't do anything to help them," said Whitling. "Instead they took advantage of the situation and thereby condoned and encouraged (the Americans)."

Elsamnah said Abdullah Khadr's case echoes that of another notorious case in which the United States arrested Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, then sent him to Syria where he was tortured.

"It would be nice if the people knew what the government is doing to its own citizens abroad."