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After a year of strange back-and-forth, a Canadian teenager convicted of plotting to bomb the New York subway and Times Square has taken on a new legal team linked to Dennis Edney, the celebrated Alberta lawyer who acted for Omar Khadr.

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Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 19, has been represented by federal public defenders since his secret arrest in May 2016, but faced pressure from his own parents to hire Edney and a New York firm working with the Edmonton lawyer, court documents reveal.

The Mississauga, Ont., man repeatedly told the judge he wished to keep public defender Sabrina Shroff, at one point saying he didn’t even want Edney visiting him in prison., It was at that time he agreed to enter a guilty plea.

But this September, El Bahnasawy said he was willing to change lawyers, citing entreaties from his parents.

“My mom was crying and begging me and I feel too bad to be doing this to them,” he said in a handwritten letter to Judge Richard Berman. “I please ask you to let Dennis Edney and his team enter the case.”