Did the Canadian government conspire with the U.S. in abusing former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr to ensure a war crimes conviction?

That’s the $20 million question.

Allegations contained in a document filed Friday as part of Khadr’s civil lawsuit state Canada was not a passive bystander in Khadr’s incarceration, but co-operated with the U.S. in violation of Canadian constitutional and international law protecting the rights of juveniles.

“Canada did not seek to remedy Omar’s plight. It sought to take advantage of it,” Khadr’s Canadian lawyers claim in the statement.

“This case is not about acts of terrorism and war that brought the clash between Omar and his American captors but about Canada’s responsibility to its citizens and its children,” the claim states, adding, “at almost every turn, Canada made the wrong choices.”

There have been a series of legal challenges since Khadr returned to Canada in September 2012 to serve the remainder of his eight-year Guantanamo sentence. He has been eligible for full parole since July 1 but has not yet applied.

Friday’s statement of claim alleging conspiracy between the U.S. and Canada amends Khadr’s $20 million civil suit, which has been outstanding for more than a decade. The claim also alleges Canada continues to deprive Khadr of his rights while in Canadian custody by failing to recognize that he was defined as a child soldier under international law at the time of his detention.

Khadr was 15 when shot and captured following a July 27, 2002 firefight in Afghanistan where U.S. Delta Force Sgt. Christopher Speer was fatally wounded. In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including “murder in violation of the laws of war” for Speer’s death in return for an eight-year sentence and chance to return to Canada.

But last week, Khadr’s Pentagon-appointed lawyers challenged the legality of that conviction in a Washington court, arguing that the law that governs Guantanamo’s war crimes trials — the Military Commissions Act — did not exist when Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and that he cannot thereby be prosecuted retroactively.

A third legal challenge filed in Canada is seeking to move Khadr from the federal maximum security Edmonton Institute to a provincial facility, which is where Khadr’s lawyers argue he should have been sent immediately upon his return.

Even before the Toronto-born Khadr was repatriated, Canada’s courts have grappled with the legality of his incarceration. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Canadian government in sending agents from the country’s spy service to interrogate Khadr in Guantanamo in 2003 was unconstitutional and “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

Khadr’s lawsuit alleges that information gleaned from those visits contributed to his prosecution.

“We say there was an agreement, whether expressed or tacit, between Canada and the United States to take steps to ensure Omar was going to be detained and pay for what it was alleged he had done,” said Khadr’s Toronto-based lawyer John Phillips Friday.

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“When all this happened, Omar was a child, he was 15 when this took place . . . . That has a number of implications of what his rights are.”

Both Canada and the U.S. are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the civil and human rights of those under 18.

The Canadian government has not yet filed a response.

The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 18 in Toronto.