Article content

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr appeared in an Edmonton courtroom Thursday, seeking changes to bail conditions that would allow him to see his sister and travel freely.

Khadr has been on bail since his release in April 2015.He pleaded guilty in October 2010 to five war crimes, including the murder of U.S. special forces soldier Christopher Speer when he was 15, but later said he entered the plea only to escape imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or 'Didn’t expect it to take this long': Omar Khadr on bail change request Back to video

Khadr, who is now 32, was back in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Edmonton Thursday to apply for changes to his bail conditions, which were imposed while he appeals the war crime convictions by a U.S. military commission.

Justice June Ross reserved her decision until next Friday.

Photo by Greg Southam / Postmedia

“When I initially asked for bail, I didn’t expect it to take this long,” Khadr said outside court. “My sentence initially should have ended this past October, but here I am. The Canadian government has put this court in a position where it has to enforce a judgement and a ruling that was derived from torture, the same torture that the Canadian government has apologized for.

“This is not the first time my life has been held in suspension, and I’m going to continue to fight this injustice, and thankfully we have an actual court system that has actual rules and laws,” he said.

He did not take questions.

Khadr sat in the gallery of the court, among reporters and a class of about 20 high school students there to watch the proceedings.