Canadian terror suspect Abdul Rahman Khadr is facing some tough questions. Khadr has admitted he trained at an "al Qaeda-related training camp" in Afghanistan in 1998, but denies his family has ties to Osama bin Laden.

"Everybody takes training. It's a common thing that every kid around 15 or that age goes to training," Khadr told a news conference Monday in Toronto following his return to Canada on Sunday.

Khadr admitted he trained for three months at Camp Khaldan, a facility in Afghanistan known in the intelligence community as "Terror-U."

Former alumni include: Would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and several of the Sept. 11 hijackers, allegedly including ringleader Mohammed Atta.

Khadr said he was only trained in the use of light arms as part of a routine right of passage in war-torn Afghanistan.

"It's just training. It's not training to kill Americans," Khadr said. "It's just training to go and fight on the northern lines."

But, al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen disputes that attending a training camp like Khalden would have been commonplace in Afghanistan.

"Certainly it was not routine for Afghans to go to this camp, and certainly this camp was pretty involved with al Qaeda ... (it) was very much an al Qaeda camp," he told CTV News.

The 20-year-old Khadr called the news conference to discuss his difficulties in returning to Canada following his two-year detention at Guantanamo Bay. He was released in October, but his 17-year-old brother, Omar, is still at the U.S. military prison.

The two were detained after Omar was accused of killing an American in the fighting that ensued after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan two years ago. He is also accused of being trained in Afghanistan -- something Khadr denied.

"In our family, the only people that have taken training are my big brother and me," Khadr said. "Omar has not had any training at all."

Khadr said the camp he trained at for about three months in 1998 was an "al Qaeda-related" training camp. When asked to explain, he said there are "a lot of organizations in Afghanistan that are connected to al Qaeda, but are different."

He denied that his detention at Guantanamo Bay had anything to do with his training. "The people who arrested me didn't know anything about me other than I was Arab."

Khadr's lawyer, Rocco Galati, defended his client, saying it's not all that surprising that military training takes place in a country like Afghanistan, which has been at war for decades.

"It's a country of conflict," Galati said. "That doesn't mean he's terrorist; it doesn't mean he did anything wrong at all."

Khadr's family has previously been accused by Canadian intelligence officials of having links to bin Laden. That includes his father, Ahmed Said Khadr.

"I'm sure my dad is innocent. The way I know it, my dad is innocent. He doesn't have any connections," he said, adding that his mother told him his father had died.

Abdul Rahman Khadr said his family travels to Afghanistan and Pakistan as aid workers, distributing money to orphanages and mosques.

Khadr said his mother is in Pakistan, and has been unable to get a Canadian passport.

Getting back to Canada

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee spent a month and a half trying to get back to Canada, after being dropped in Afghanistan.

While he wouldn't talk specifically about his detention Monday, he said the reason he had been arrested was because "I was an Arab."

Khadr said when the Americans decided to let him go, he told them he wanted to go back to Canada, but they said: "Well, the Canadians don't want to take you. Or they don't want you back.

"So we're going to take you back to where we captured you."

From Afghanistan it was a long journey home for Khadr, who travelled through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey to Bosnia trying to get permission to return to Canada.

Lacking cash or any papers, Khadr borrowed money from friends and went to the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan looking for help, but they turned him away because he had no way to identify himself.

"The people the door -- they didn't let me talk to any Canadian officials," Khadr said.

He then went to Iran and Turkey before arriving late last week in Bosnia. Khadr said he had read reports of his grandmother pleading for him to contact an embassy and when he arrived in Sarajevo "there was somebody waiting for me inside."

Answering questions about how he was able to travel around, he said: "It is very easy if you have the money and you have the people."

Ottawa denies he was turned away by Canadian officials in Pakistan and Turkey.

A former head of strategic planning for CSIS told CTV Newsnet he thought Khadr's press conference raised more questions than it answered.

"(Khadr's family) said he tried at the gates of embassies but was rejected, perhaps by local guards, who weren't even Canadian officials. The question is: couldn't he just pick up a phone if he was that determined to get back?" asked David Harris.

"How was it that somebody who was supposed to be penniless was able to travel from country to country under the most adverse circumstances and then wind up back at Canada at a news conference looking fairly comfortable?"

Khadr was greeted at Toronto's Pearson International Airport by his grandmother and his lawyer, who have been pressuring Ottawa to let him return home. Now they are focused on getting Omar back.

"We call on the Canadian government to assist and demand release of my client's brother, Omar Khadr, from Guantanamo Bay," Galati told the news conference.

"It's unacceptable that the Canadian government simply ignores the plight of its nationals at Guantanamo Bay."

In a related issue, the U.S. has said it was going to release scores of detainees over the next few months. It's unclear if the younger Khadr will be among those freed.