Khadr got a $10.5 million settlement because his case was a slam dunk. The Supreme Court of Canada had already found that his rights had been violated in his earlier case against the federal government to try to get them to have the US hand him back over to Canadian authorities. Under the legal principle of res judicata the issue had already been decided. The federal government’s case to defend itself from his claim was simply untenable.
That left the issue of how much. The precedent had recently been set that a court could go as high as $10 million for wrongful imprisonments. While the guys that got that much in their cases served longer sentences than Khadr, there would have been extenuating circumstances in his case such as the fact that he was subjected to torture and that he was a minor at the time of his capture. Lastly, the Supreme Court told the federal government years before that they were obliged to bring him home before he even had is trial at Gitmo but the government declined to act, and he only got to come back to Canada after being convicted and serving several more years in Gitmo. All that adds up to a scenario where he also likely ends up with an 8 figure judgment.
The feds were in a no win situation with the Khadr case. Do they take him to trial knowing they’ll get taken to the wood shed, spend millions more in legal fees only to end up in the exact same place by having to still paying him $10 million, or risk the terrible optics of a settlement?