(Saskatoon) Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney, who played a crucial role in the release of Omar Khadr, a young man imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, has died at the age of 77.
Published at 9:15 p.m.
Kelly Geraldine Malone The Canadian Press
An obituary published in the Edmonton Journal said Mr. Edney suffered from dementia and died Saturday.
The soccer player turned renowned lawyer spent more than a decade defending Omar Khadr, including in three cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, which ultimately led to his release in 2015.
“Dennis was a great lawyer and friend. “In all my years in the legal profession, I have never met a lawyer who is so committed to his clients,” said Justice Nathan Whitling of the Alberta Court of King's Bench, who was part of Mr. Khadr's legal team along with Mr. Edney.
Mr Edney was born in Dundee, a coastal town in the east of Scotland. A profile of Mr Edney published in a Scottish tabloid in 2012 said he was the son of a truck driver.
“What made me a fighter against governments was my own Scottish character. We don’t want the underdog to be targeted,” Mr Edney told the Daily Record.
He left home at 17 and became a low-level professional soccer player in San Francisco. He was also a truck driver and carpenter before turning to law and attending Northumbria University in England.
Mr. Edney was nearly 40 years old in 1987 when he became a criminal defense lawyer and made Canada his permanent home. His obituary states that he made Edmonton his home for most of the last 45 years.
“Dennis put his heart and soul into everything. “His law practice reflected his passion for justice and his indomitable spirit,” the obituary said.
Mr. Edney's legal practice has focused on criminal law and human rights and he has appeared numerous times before the Supreme Court of Canada. Mr Edney and Mr Whitling were widely celebrated as examples of volunteer – or unpaid – work. He was a co-recipient of the 2008 national Justice Pro Bono Award.
A remarkable file
Mr. Edney became a constant nuisance to officials in Ottawa as he assumed legal representation for the young Guantanamo Bay detainee and often confronted then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government.
“Mr Harper doesn’t like Muslims,” Mr Edney said in 2015 after a Supreme Court hearing.
Mr. Khadr, born in Toronto, was 15 years old when he was captured by American troops in 2002 after a firefight at a suspected al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan that left an American special forces soldier dead. Mr. Khadr was accused of throwing the grenade that killed the soldier.
PHOTO HO, Portal ARCHIVE
The young Omar Khadr
Mr. Edney said he called Mr. Khadr's family in Toronto and asked whether they had had legal representation when the boy was first detained. Mr. Edney visited Guantanamo and met Mr. Khadr, whom he described as broken and withdrawn.
Mr. Khadr later argued that he pleaded guilty in order to leave Guantanamo Bay, where he was the youngest detainee. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling later found that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence from Mr. Khadr during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2003 under “oppressive circumstances” such as sleep deprivation and then passed that evidence to American officials.
The Canadian government later paid $10.5 million in compensation and apologized for violating Mr. Khadr's constitutional rights.
Mr. Edney was appointed by the U.S. Pentagon as a foreign consulting attorney to assist Mr. Khadr with legal defense at the Cuban naval base. He continued to represent the young man when Mr. Khadr returned to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence.
When Mr Khadr was released on bail three years later, he moved in with Mr Edney and the lawyer's wife.
Patricia Edney told the CBC shortly afterwards that Mr Khadr was welcome at her home and could stay as long as “he wanted”.
The obituary states that the lawyer and his wife were soulmates from the beginning. They met in 1986 and married six weeks later.
The best man at her wedding predicted to Patricia Edney that life would never be boring, the statement said.
The couple had two sons, Cameron and Duncan. Mr. Edney loved to talk around the table, go to hockey arenas and ski slopes and spoil the family dogs, the announcement also said.
“His greatest and enduring passion was family. »