US paid $500,000 to Pakistan for Abdullah Khadr arrest

OTTAWA: A US intelligence agency paid a 500,000-dollar bounty to Pakistan for the arrest of the Canadian son of a suspected Al-Qaeda financier, said court documents released Monday.According to an October 2004 memo to the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) ordered released by Canada's federal court, Abdullah Khadr was wanted for "supporting insurgent activity in Pakistan and Afghanistan." Thus, Khadr "is deemed to be a national security threat and has a 500,000 US dollar outstanding bounty for his capture," said the memo published on the website of a daily. Meanwhile, his brother Omar Khadr faces an upcoming US military tribunal on charges that he murdered a US army medic in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old. Omar Khadr was arrested the same year and has since been held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court documents also include a transcript of an RCMP interview in which Khadr says he is not a member of Al-Qaeda, but adds, "I only buy and sell weapons for Al-Qaeda."