Toronto Islamic centre offers to post bail for Abdullah Khadr

Members of a Toronto Islamic centre have offered to post $50,000 bail for Abdullah Khadr, the eldest son in a family accused of ties to terrorism who has spent more than two years in prison.

Abdul Ibrahim, who has run the Salaheddin Islamic Centre for more than 10 years, also offered to give Khadr a job as part of the bail proposal, made in a Toronto court Wednesday

Ibrahim denied suggestions from the Crown attorney that the proposal was a bad idea, considering Khadr's late father had ties to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and was a frequent visitor at the centre.

Khadr has been in custody since his arrest in Toronto in mid-December 2005 at the request of U.S. authorities. Lawyers argued Wednesday for bail pending the result of lengthy extradition hearings that could result in him being sent to the United States.

Khadr — whose brother Omar Khadr is detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — sat in the prisoner's box, while his grandparents, younger brother Abdul Karim and about 10 supporters watched the proceedings.

Crown lawyer Howard Piafsky also questioned Ibrahim's bail offer on the basis that several Toronto-area men accused of a Canadian terrorist conspiracy attended the Islamic centre.

While Ibrahim admitted he had signed a passport application for one of the men in 2004, he said he knew many men through the mosque and that the centre did not support extremism in any form.

The court heard Wednesday about a new electronic monitoring bracelet that tracks the wearer in real time. Khadr's lawyers are proposing that he wear such a device and live with his grandparents.

He was indicted in Massachusetts in early 2006 on four charges, including conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to possess a destructive device to commit violent crimes.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison and a million-dollar fine.

Khadr's lawyers want him released on $300,000 bail. The Crown will argue he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

The 27-year-old is one of five siblings in the Khadr family, which includes Omar Khadr, 21, the only westerner still being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was captured in 2002 at 15 following a bloody firefight in Afghanistan, and is accused of lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. medic.

Khadr family patriarch Ahmed Said Khadr was believed to have been an al-Qaeda financier before he was killed in a gun battle in Pakistan in 2003.

Several family members reside in southern Ontario after immigrating from Egypt in 1977.

Khadr's hearing is expected to continue Thursday.