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A courtroom sketch of Abdullah Khadr at his extradition hearing on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Zaynab Khadr was the only member of family to attend her brother Abdullah's extradition hearing on Wednesday, April 7, 2010.

Khadr's lawyers fighting extradition attempt

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CTV Toronto: Austin Delaney on the hearing
An extradition hearing is underway for Abdullah Khadr, a member of the notorious Toronto family who has been charged by the U.S. with supplying weapons to al Qaeda. Austin Delaney reports

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A courtroom sketch of Abdullah Khadr at his extradition hearing on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Zaynab Khadr was the only member of family to attend her brother Abdullah's extradition hearing on Wednesday, April 7, 2010.

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A courtroom sketch of Abdullah Khadr at his extradition hearing on Wednesday, April 7, 2010.

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Date: Wed. Apr. 7 2010 8:15 PM ET

An extradition hearing is underway for a member of the notorious Khadr family, who is wanted by the United States for allegedly buying weapons for al Qaeda.

But lawyers for Abdullah Khadr argued Wednesday in a Toronto courtroom that evidence against their client had been obtained through torture while he was being held without charge.

"… Intelligence doesn't trump the rule of law," said Dennis Edney, one of Khadr's lawyers. "We don't pick people off the streets."

Khadr, 28, had spent 14 months in detention in Pakistan, largely because of a $500,000 bounty placed on his head by the CIA.

Police arrested Khadr on an extradition warrant shortly after his return to Toronto, and he has been in custody since December 2005.

The Crown is expected to present its case on Thursday. Three days have been scheduled for the case, but the judge is expected to reserve his decision.

Abdullah's younger brother Omar is in custody at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has been charged with murder in the death of a U.S. soldier in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.

Omar, who has been in custody since he was 15, is still awaiting trial before a military tribunal -- a trial scheduled to begin on April 28. When it starts, his case will be the first modern-day prosecution of a child soldier.

The federal government has said it will not seek his return to Canada despite a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Khadr's rights are being violated.

Another younger brother, Abdul Karim, became a paraplegic after being wounded in a 2003 gunfight with security forces in northwest Pakistan that left the Khadr family's patriarch dead. He returned to Canada in April 2004.

Egypt-born Ahmed Said Khadr was believed to be an al Qaeda financier and a friend of the Islamist extremist group's leader, Osama bin Laden. Khadr's involvement in Afghanistan began during the occupation of that country by the old Soviet Union.

A final Khadr scion, Abdurahman, was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001. He told a wild tale of being placed in Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay by the CIA to help spy on inmates there.

The only sibling and family member to show up at Abdullah's hearing on Wednesday was his niqab-wearing sister Zaynab.

She was on a passport control list at one point, along with her mother Elsamnah. They had repeatedly lost their passports and sought replacements.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney

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