No passport for son of Al-Qaeda militant

OTTAWA: Ottawa has refused on national security grounds to issue a Canadian passport to the son of an avowed Al-Qaeda militant, despite a federal court decision ordering it to do so, officials said on Wednesday.

In June, Canada's Federal Court ruled that Ottawa was wrong to have denied Canadian citizen Abdurahman Khadr the travel document two years ago before new anti-terror provisions were enacted.

Khadr was "neither convicted nor charged with any offence nor said to be a threat to Canada," Justice Michael Phelan said in his decision.

Dan Dugas, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, said on Wednesday that "a passport was issued Tuesday and immediately revoked" while the government appeals the court decision.

Khadr is the son of Egyptian-born Ahmed Said Khadr, believed to be a top Al-Qaeda financier and friend of Osama bin Laden. The elder Khadr was killed by Pakistani authorities in October 2003.

According to court documents, Abdurahman Khadr had lost a passport issued to him in 1999, while abroad.

In 2001, he was detained in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance, liberated by US forces and flown to Guantanamo Bay in 2003 to act as a "mole" for the CIA, the documents said.

He was released and flown to Bosnia where Canadian officials helped him obtain an emergency passport to return to Canada.

But Canada's passport office denied him a replacement travel document in 2004 after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service expressed "national security concerns" about members of the Khadr family.