Adhikari, et al. v. Government of Canada, Court File No: CV-18-00599976-0000 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice).
This action was brought on behalf of the families of fifteen Nepali security guards who were killed in a bombing in Afghanistan while en route to their jobs at the Canadian Embassy against the Government of Canada and the security company that employed the men. The lawsuit is joined by five surviving Nepali guards of the bombing who suffered grievous injuries.
The case alleges as follows:
In June 2016, a bus carrying Nepali security guards to their shift at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul was struck by a bomb, killing 15 of the guards and injuring five. Most of the survivors will never work again, suffering severe injuries and traumatized by seeing colleagues maimed and dismembered.
The guards were hired for the Canadian embassy guard force by a private security contractor, Sabre International, and were paid the equivalent of $3.30 US per hour. They had been promised $300,000 in life insurance and permanent disability insurance, but following the bombing, the widows and survivors were told that, in fact, only “expats” were entitled to this amount of coverage. “Third country nationals,” as the Nepali guards were deemed, were only entitled to $30,000 in insurance.
After the bombing, none of the families of the men who were killed were ever contacted by the Government of Canada, and the survivors only received cursory visits from Canada’s Ambassador to India in Delhi, where the men were taken for medical treatment. Prior to Canada hiring Sabre as it security company, it was known that Sabre had a disqualifying history, having been implicated in the recruitment of former child soldiers from Sierra Leone and investigated by the US State Department for recruiting fighters of the Liberian war lord, Chucky Taylor. Although Canada had publicly adopted specific standards of conduct for private security contractors, including their treatment of their guards, Canada provided Sabre a $40,000,000 contract in spite of its alarming past.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for the families and survivors for the discriminatory contract between Canada and Sabre, the deceptive and discriminatory application of the life insurance policies, and for damages resulting from the wrongful deaths and injuries of the victims.
A copy of the filed Statement of Claim can be found HERE.
Media coverage of the lawsuit can be found at the following links:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/survivors-of-suicide-bombing-sue-canadian-government-1.4713648
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/suicide-bombing-gurkhas-lawsuit-1.4708874
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saber-lawsuit-child-soldiers-1.4714939
If you have any questions concerning this case please contact Matthew Handley, at 202-559-2411 or [email protected].