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Harper refused to say anything further, citing the fact the matter remains before the courts.

Khadr spent almost 13 years behind bars — four of them as a convicted war criminal.

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He was captured, badly wounded, by American forces in Afghanistan in July 2002. At one time, he was the youngest prisoner at the American prison compound in Guantanamo Bay.

After his release on bail Thursday, he offered a comment on Harper’s hardline stance: “I’m going to have to disappoint him, I’m better than the person he thinks I am.”

In an ad hoc press conference in the driveway of his lawyer Dennis Edney on Thursday, Khadr also apologized for the pain he has caused in some of his first public remarks since he became a household name in Canada more than a decade ago.

“I will prove to [Canadians] that I’m more than what they thought of me, I’ll prove to them that I’m a good person,” Khadr said.

“Give me a chance — see who I am as a person, not as a name — and then they can make their own judgment after that.”

Edney, who helped secure his client’s bail in part by offering to let Khadr move in with his family, also lobbed a heavy accusation at the prime minister.

“Mr. Harper is a bigot. Mr. Harper doesn’t like Muslims,” Edney said Thursday in response to the federal government’s long fight to keep the 28-year-old Khadr incarcerated until the end of his sentence.

Patricia Edney told CTV News Friday that Khadr’s first evening with his new family was relatively uneventful. There was a lamb dinner, and other than neighbours dropping by to bring flowers and desserts, efforts were made not to dwell on the controversy over his release.