AUSTRALIA: Terrorism charges laid for the first time in five years against Australian Guantanamo inmate David Hicks

The U.S military has charged Australia's only Guantanamo Bay detainee with providing material support for terrorism, and legal proceedings will begin in about a month, the Pentagon said on Thursday (March 1). Charges brought against David Hicks on Thursday were the first brought against a suspected al Qaeda or Taliban member under a military commissions law passed by the U.S. Congress last year, the Pentagon said. Meanwhile Hicks, has complained of torture and abuse at the Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba, Australian media reported on Friday (March 2). Hicks, in an application for British citizenship, said he had been shown a photo of a battered fellow inmate, and was told he would be sent to Egypt for similar treatment if he did not cooperate, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Hicks, the sole Australian at Guantanamo Bay, said the anxiety caused by months of abuse forced him to "say anything" to military interrogators. The United States has denied any abuse at the prison. The 31-year-old has been in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay for five years and ongoing delays in bringing him before a court have led to growing calls in Australia for his release. Hicks' Lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said on Friday that the charges against Hicks, including his previously intended murder charge, were unsubstantiated, and that the trial had gone on for too long. "I think they realise that everybody else in the world realise that it was made up in a BS charge. It was ridiculous. No one thought that you could charge him with attempted murder when you admit, when the prosecution admitted that they never shot anybody. But yet they let that go on for two and a half years. It's embarrassing that it's gone on for this long", he said. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard agreed that the trial had gone on too long. "The Americans have certainly speeded up the process, whether that is the result of representations I've made to both president Bush and Vice President Cheney I don't know but we have made those representations. We remain unhappy that it has taken so long," he said. Howard, one of U.S. President George W. Bush's closest allies, raised the length of Hicks' detention with Bush and pressed U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for a speedy trial when he visited Sydney last weekend. The visit prompted protests against Cheney, and demonstrators called for the release of David Hicks. Hicks, whose mother was born in Britain, is seeking British citizenship in the hope that London will then seek his release from Guantanamo Bay, as it did for nine British nationals. The chief U.S. military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Colonel Moe Davis, told Australian radio that he was unlikely to seek life imprisonment for Hicks, who should face a preliminary court hearing within a month. In the charging documents, the U.S. military said Hicks supported terrorism by attending al Qaeda training courses, conducted surveillance on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, guarded a tank outside Kandahar airport and fought U.S. and coalition forces for about two hours.

ITN Source | March 2, 2007

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