Nowhere Man 
  by Cameron Stewart
If anyone has a grudge against someone like David hicks, it is Theodore B. Olsen. On the morning of September 11, Olson, the US Solicitor General, received a phone call from his wife, Barbara. She told him that the plane she was on - American Airlines Flight 77 - had been hijacked and that the passengers and crew had been herded to the back of the aircraft. What should she do? she asked America's most powerful lawyer. Seconds later, her plane ploughed into the side of the Pentagon. Since then, Olson has been on a mission close to his heart. He has put together a team of America's finest lawyer whose sole aim is to stymie any challenge to the detention of the 300-odd suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan and held without charge since January at Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Amongst their number is Hicks, the 26 year-old form Adelaide - a man labelled by the Australian Government "as dangerous as a person can be in modern times" On the other side of the world, Terry Hicks sits under a peach tree, draws back on his cigarette and contemplates his son's situation. "Won't be easy," he says, "but we have to do something." On this night he and 11 others have gathered in a friend's backyard in Adelaide to hatch plans to help foil Olson's legal team and force the US Government to either charge David Hicks with a crime or send him back to Australia. Some are family, some are friends and some are strangers who have come to voice their concern about the way their own government has handled the Hicks case. There are not many of them because frankly, David Hicks is hardly a cause celebre. But the group, which calls itself Fair Go For David, is in a chipper mood. It has just arranged for a friend to set up a pro-Hicks Web site. This good deed should not go unrewarded, they agree. "He loves chocolate, especially chocolate mud cake," one says. They take a vote - make a chocolate mud cake for the Webmaster. The next item on the agenda is money - the raising of a war chest to help fund the legal assault on Olson's crack team of Washington lawyers who are determined to to keep Hicks and others in Camp X-ray, The group's "treasurer", a Hicks family friend, summarises the situation as her dog, Bonnie, eyes off the sweet cakes on the nearby table. "We are $400 in the red," she says, "But we have sold 206 raffle tickets, which means we have made about $105." The group has arranged for a guest speaker to address them. He is Wali Hanifi, a tall Afghan Australian who had the misfortune of presiding over Hick's conversion to Islam. Hanifi, president of the Islamic Society of South Australia, became a minor media celebrity in December when Hicks was captured in Afghanistan after allegedly training with Osaman bin Laden's al-Qai'da terrorist group. When ASIO told Terry Hicks to keep the media out by pulling the blinds and locking the doors, the TV cameras focused instead on Hanifi, who told then how Hicks had worshipped at the mosque in suburban Gilles Plains. On this night, Hanifi has come to get something off his chest. " I personally was born in Afghanistan " he tells the group. "And I lost two uncles, killed by the [Communist] government. So I know what it is like to lose a ember of your family." Terry Hicks sucks on his cigarette and watches silently as Hanifi continues. "What David's involvement is in Afghanistan we don't know. But I knew David as a good person and it saddens me to see him being called bad things in the press. It is heartening to see a group coming together for the rights of a fellow citizen, a family member and a friend. Terry has a right to be able to see his son - I'm here to support you." His speech draws nods of approval from the group and brief applause from Terry's brother Chris sitting opposite. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN, SITTING in a small, nondescript office, Hicks family lawyer Stephen Kenny says he approves of what the group is trying to do. Yet Kenny, a civil rights advocate who represented the local Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal tribe in the controversial Hindmarsh Island Bridge case, is also a realist about his battle with Olson and his team. "We are completely and utterly outgunned," he says with a slightly manic laugh. "But at the same time, it is clear what they [the US Government] are doing in relation to David Hicks is in breach of international law and the US Constitution." Kenny, in partnership with a handful of US lawyers, has launched an ambitious legal action accusing President Bush of violating the constitutional rights of Hicks and two British detainees at Camp X-ray by holding them without pressing charges. "There are few principles more firmly established in our law than the prohibition on indefinite detention," says US lawyer Joseph Margulies, who is working with Kenny. "This case presents a challenge as to whether we jettison the rule of law because we are angry. Terry Hicks is learning quickly about what people are willing to do when they are angry. "Both the government and the media made their minds up about David from the start," he says. His wife, Bev, recalls the day when the ASIO officer knocked on their door to tell them that her stepson had been captured. "He said,'I'm from ASIO' and he walked in and said, 'Well, I guess you've heard all about [US Taliban fighter] John Walker Lindh."' When the news broke several days later, Terry Hicks recalls arriving at his Salisbury Park home to find a group of media camped on his lawn. "Some silly sheila stuck a fluffy thing in my face and said, 'What do you think of your son being a traitor?'" he says. "They had made their mind up." Certainly there is little public sympathy towards Hicks or his incarceration in Cuba. The events of September 11 have fuelled a powerful backlash against anyone with suspected links to terrorist organisations. In this climate of fear and anger, David Hicks has been demonised by the Australian and US governments, and by the media. They may well be right - Hicks could be a dangerous terrorist-in-waiting. The Australian Government says it has reliable in Afghanistan, although it refuses to release evidence to support the claim. At the very least it does seem that Hicks fought for the repressive Taliban regime at a time when Australia had committed troops to help topple it. But regardless of what he has done, Hicks has been allowed to fall through the cracks of the new world order. He has become a non-person, held indefinitely without charge, stripped of all his legal rights including rights traditionally accorded to prisoners of war, and publicly vilified before the evidence against him is heard or made available. The Australian Government has made no request for his return and has provided no consular assistance. Its only concession is that a diplomat will accompany ASIO and Federal Police investigators when they interrogate Hicks in order to "assess Mr. Hicks's welfare." This stands in stark contrast to the government's efforts in relation to other Australians overseas, including alleged spy Steve Pratt in the former Yugoslavia and alleged embezzlers Kerry and Kay Danes in Laos. "The Australian Government has effectively abandoned David Hicks," says Don Rothwell, associate professor of law at Sydney University. "Irrespective of what he might have done, he is still entitled to basic rights of protection from his government. It is a basic issue of human rights." Attorney General Daryl Williams says that the Hicks case is unique and cannot be compared with other consular cases involving Australians abroad. "It is a most unusual situation; I don't think there has been anything like it," he says. 'You have an Australian citizen giving the appearance of being involved in a terrorist organisation, fighting with troops of what might be described as a government but not recognised by Australia, and captured by [Northern Alliance] forces allied with the US and Australia." Confusing and unprecedented as the case may be, it does not justify the Australian Government's behaviour, including its decision to keep the Hicks family in the dark about the fate of their son, says Terry O' Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties. "The inability of the Hicks family to get information out of the attorney general and the foreign minister is indicative of the lack of interest shown by the government in Hicks," he adds. Terry Hicks says that since his son's capture in December, he has had to rely on newspaper reports to learn about his fate. A flurry of correspondence from his lawyer to the Attorney General's Department asking for information about the legal case against Hicks has been met with the same stock response - Hicks will remain at Camp X-ray until the Australian Government "works through complex legal issues" of his case. top of page end of page But the official demonisation of Hicks began long before the "complex legal issues" of his case were assessed. On January 31, the US Ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, bluntly described David Hicks as a terrorist who was part of the al-Qai'da network. "David Hicks is a dangerous man and we want to be sure that he's not allowed to hurt anyone else, " said Schieffler. One week later, the Australian Government made its key allegation - that Hicks was not just a Taliban fighter, he was also a member of al-Qai'da. Bev Hicks recalls her shock when she first read the claim in the newspaper. "No government official, nor ASIO or the Federal Police, ever said to us that he was caught as an al-Qai'da fighter," she says. In the US, official comments have been equally damming. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for example has described the detainees at Camp X-ray as the most "vicious killers" in the history of the world. At Guantanamo Bay, US military officials singled Hicks out, describing the Australian as a notable troublemaker who had threatened his captors and tried to unshackle himself during the flight from Afghanistan to Cuba. "He's a hothead," Colonel Bernie Liswell was quoted as saying. "He's a cocky guy and he talks about killing Americans." But since these comments in late January military officers at Camp X-ray have refused to discuss Hicks - raising speculation that they have been silenced by Washington or Canberra. Camp X-ray spokesman, US Marine Captain Ricoh Player, told The Weekend Australian Magazine: "Our policy is not identities of any detainees. This is partly out of respect for the detainees privacy, but mostly out of respect for the countries they come from." Stephen Kenny believes the damage is done and the widespread public commentary on Hicks may jeopardise his client's hopes of a fair trial. But whether Hicks will even face a fair trial remains uncertain. At the time of writing neither the US nor Australian government had determined what charges, if any, would be laid him. If the US chooses to haul Hicks in front of its specially created military tribunal to deal with terrorists, he may face the death penalty. Attorney General Daryl Williams says he believes the US will make its decision on Hicks before Australia. However, Defence Minister Robert Hill has said previously that he believes the US will agree to allow Hicks to face trial in Australia, In the meantime, the government maintains that Camp X-ray rather than an Australian jail, is the appropriate place to hold Hicks. The problem is that Australian laws were never framed to deal with something as bizarre as the David Hicks case. Training with al-Qai'da, or fighting for a group like the Taliban, does not appear to be an offence under current Australian law. The closest applicable law is the 1978 Crimes (Foreign Incursion and Recruitment) Act that made it a crime to fight as a mercenary overseas. This states that a person must be involved in a 'hostile activity against the government" of a host country. But Hicks was fighting with the Taliban, the then government of Afghanistan, not against it. Another option might be to charge Hicks with treason because he was fighting against a coalition that included Australia. However, this is complicated by the fact that Australia was not formally "at war" with Afghanistan - a requirement under the treason laws. Williams has hinted he is unlikely to introduce retrospective legislation to convict Hicks because such a move would be unpopular. As a result, a team of lawyers in Canberra has been working for months to pigeonhole Hicks into existing legislation. Their task is complicated by the fact that evidence against Hicks is difficult to obtain from war torn Afghanistan, and much of it comes from US intelligence sources. "In order to gather evidence, you have to know what has happened [in Pakistan and Afghanistan]," says Williams. Although the precise nature of Hicks' crimes remain unclear, he did at the very least fight on the wrong side of a war involving Australia - there would be a public outcry if he walked free on a legal technicality. Indeed, a failed prosecution is what Canberra fears most if it agrees to try him in Australia. This delicate dilemma for the government has been rammed home by the indelicate comments of America's Rumsfeld. The defence secretary has indicated that the US would be happy to send foreign prisoners at Camp X-ray back home. But there is a condition they must be prosecuted, "rather than simply turning them loose, putting them back out on the streets and having them go get more aeroplanes and flying them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center again" His message is clear: we will only give them up if you put them in the dock. But in saying this, Rumsfeld has placed conditions on the legal judgments of Britain and Australia in relation to their own citizens. In Britain, Home Secretary David Blunkett described Rumsfeld's comments as "inappropriate" However, the Australian Government has remained silent about this potential infringement of its legal sovereignty. When asked if Australia had privately expressed displeasure to the US over Rumsfeld's comments, Daryl Williams says only that Australia "has noted the concerns" raised by Britain. Says associate professor Rothwell: "You can contrast Australia's complete lack of interest in the rights of one of its citizens with that of the UK." O' Gorman says Australia has let diplomatic concerns cloud its judgement on Hicks. "This is the 2002 version of 'All the way with LBJ'. The federal government has not been prepared to do or say anything in relation to Hicks for fear of upsetting the Americans." The Australian Government has also remained silent on the US decision to deny the protection of the Geneva Convention to Hicks and others in Camp X-ray suspected of having links with al-Qai'da (the decision not to classify Hicks as a prisoner of war gives interrogators more latitude in questioning him). Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has labelled the Australian Government as 'gutless" and "pathetic" for not demanding that the Americans abide by the Geneva Convention. But the mood in both Canberra and Washington is that the war on terror is too important to be stymied by the conventions that have traditionally governed the treatment of captured soldiers. Williams denies the government has washed its hands of Hicks. "We have not abandoned him at all - he is of significant interest to us from a law enforcement point of view. The civil libertarian point of view doesn't take into account that [Hicks] is not a civil prisoner who has committed a crime a civil situation ... he has been captured in a military situation." Williams a denies that the government has be more anxious to please the America than it has been to stand up for Hick legal rights as an Australian. He says Hicks is in US military custody and given the circumstances of his capture and his suspected links to al-Qai'da, it is inappropriate for both governments to examine possible charges against him. When asked how long the government is prepared to let Hicks remain in Cuba, Williams is non-committal. "Our view is that US military authorities are entitled to detain him until military hostilities have ceased," he says. But is he talking about hostilities in Afghanistan? Or Iraq? Or Somalia? The bottom line is that - barring an unlikely legal victory by Kenny's team - Hicks will be detained without charges in Camp X-ray for as long as the US and Australia wish. His parents are under no illusions about the determination of the Australian Government to press charges against their son if it can. However, they remain almost naively optimistic that he was nothing more than a spiritual adventurer who ran with the wrong crowd. Terry Hicks firmly believes his son fought with the Taliban but not for al-Qai'da. "What he has done is fight for the wrong army at the wrong time. Al-Qai'da are a fanatical mob. If he was al-Qai'da, he would have stood there until the last bullet." A few blocks away, Linda White sucks on her cigarette and ponders the claims being made about her former boyfriend. "I reckon he was pressured to do what he was doing," she says. "Because it's not him - that wasn't the David I knew." Media portrayals of Hicks have so far failed to explain why Hicks became a terrorist-trainee, if that is what he did. The picture emerges of an obsessive drifter in search of spiritual meaning and fascinated by war. But it remains a mystery why he took the next step, hating all things Western and supposedly joining al-Qai'da. If the government knows, it is not yet telling. "We're not saying he hasn't done anything wrong," says Bev Hicks. "We don't know that. All we are saying is that he should be given a fair go. Bring him home and if he is going to be tried for something, let him be tried in his own country." "The problem," says Terry Hicks, "is that I don't think they really know what to do with my son."

                        David Hicks

Early life

David Hicks was born in Adelaide, South Australia along with sister Chelsea Hicks. Described by his father Terry Hicks as "adventurous", he spent time working on rural properties in the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia. In 1999, Hicks travelled to Albania (leaving behind a failed relationship and two children), where he joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary organisation of ethnic Albanian Muslims fighting against Serbian forces in the Kosovo War, and served with them for two months. But the conflict in Kosovo was almost over by the time he arrived and he saw no fighting. After his return to Australia, Hicks converted to Islam and began to study Arabic.

Hicks in custody

Hicks's father Terry Hicks has sought since 2002 to have his son brought to Australia for trial, but the Australian government has made no move to request the U.S. to release Hicks. Since 2003 the Australian government has been requesting that Hicks be brought to trial without further delay, and has extended him consular support.

According to Hicks in conversations with his father, he was abused by both Northern Alliance and U.S. soldiers. Nevertheless, the Australian Government has consistently accepted U.S. assurances that David Hicks and another Australian formerly held at Guantanamo Bay, Mamdouh Habib, have been treated in accordance with international law. This is in contrast to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations' report of July 28, 2006, which criticizes the United States for its human rights policies and positions. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights: "The United States has become a country that openly flouts human rights laws, refuses to respond to questions about policy and practice, and worst of all commits abuses that would have been unimaginable under prior administrations,"

On August 5, 2004 David Hicks filed an affidavit declaring that he had been tortured, abused and ill-treated during his detention by U.S. military authorities, and that he saw and heard similar treatment inflicted on other detainees. The affidavit was made public on December 10, 2004. U.S. military authorities are investigating the claims.

In June 2006, Moazzam Begg, a British man who had also been held at Guantanamo Bay but was released in 2005, claimed in his book Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back that Hicks had abandoned his Islamic beliefs, and had been denounced by a fellow inmate and al-Qaeda member, Uthman al-Harbi, for his lack of observance.

Hicks's position

The U.S. administration has referred to Hicks as "the worst of the worst", but it has not alleged Hicks engaged in any actual acts of terrorism, nor that he killed any U.S. or Coalition soldier while engaged in fighting at Konduz.

Hicks has never had an opportunity to give a detailed account of the beliefs that motivated him to enlist with the KLA, Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Taliban. In 2004 an Australian documentary called The President versus David Hicks was made by Curtis Levy, with the cooperation of Terry Hicks, who appears in the documentary.

In the documentary, Terry Hicks reads out excerpts of David Hicks's letters, in which Hicks says that his training in Pakistan and Afghanistan is designed to ensure "the Western-Jewish domination is finished, so we live under Muslim law again". He denounces the plots of the Jews to divide Muslims and make them think poorly of Osama bin Laden and warns his father to ignore "the Jews' propaganda war machine,"

Terry Hicks has said that his son seemed unaware of the September 11 attacks when they spoke on a mobile phone a few days after the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan began.

In November 2005, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation programme Four Corners broadcast for the first time a transcript of an interview with Hicks, conducted by the Australian Federal Police in 2002.  In this interview Hicks acknowledged that he had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, learning guerilla tactics and urban warfare. He also acknowledged that he had met Osama bin Laden. He claimed to have disapproved of the September 11 attacks but to have been unable to leave Afghanistan. He denied engaging in any actual fighting against U.S. or allied forces.

Four Corners journalist Debbie Whitmont said: Four Corners can confirm, that in Guantanamo, Hicks signed a statement written by American military investigators that includes the following, "I believe that al-Qaeda camps provided a great opportunity for Muslims like myself from all over the world to train for military operations and jihad. I knew after six months that I was receiving training from al-Qaeda, who had declared war on numerous countries and peoples."

Hicks's cancelled trial

Hicks's trial was initially set for January 10, 2005. The U.S. Army appointed Major Michael Mori as his defense counsel.

In February the Hicks's family lawyer, Stephen Kenny, who had been representing Hicks in Australia without compensation since 2002, was dismissed from the defense team and Vietnam veteran and Army Reservist, David McLeod replaced him.

The trial was delayed in November 2004 when the US Federal Court ruled that Commissions were neither competent nor lawful.

In July 2005, the US appeals court ruled that the trial of "Unlawful Combatants" did not come under the Geneva Convention, and that they could be tried by a military tribunal.

In September it was announced that Hicks's trial would begin on 18 November.

In mid-February 2005, Jumana Musa, Amnesty International's legal observer at Guantanamo Bay, visited Australia to speak to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock (who is a member of Amnesty) about the military commissions. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Musa as stating that Australia is, "the only country that seems to have come out and said that the idea of trying somebody, their own citizen, before this process might be OK, and I think that should be a concern to anybody."

In July 2005 the U.S. appeals court accepted the prosecution claim that because "the President of the United States issued a memorandum in which he determined that none of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions "apply to our conflict with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world" that Hicks, among others, could be tried by a military tribunal.

In early August 2005 leaked emails from former U.S. prosecutors were obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that were critical of the legal process. They accuse it of being "a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged" and "writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don't really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer."

Ruddock responded by saying that the email comments, which were written in March 2004, "must be seen as historic rather than current".

On October 21, 2005, The Age reported that the US government announced that if Hicks was convicted it wouldn't count the time he has been detained against his sentence.

In the Four Corners interview, Terry Hicks discussed "allegations of physical and sexual abuse of his son by American soldiers". He said that David Hicks had had objects inserted into his anus and had been repeatedly beaten while in American custody.

On November 15, 2005District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stayed the proceeding against Hicks until the US Supreme Court had ruled on Hamdan's appeal over their constitutionality.

On June 29, 2006, in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the United States Supreme Court ruled that the military tribunals were illegal under United States law and the Geneva Conventions.

On July 7, 2006 a memo was issued from The Pentagon directing that all military detainees are entitled to humane treatment and to certain basic legal standards, as required by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

On August 15, 2006, Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock announced that he would seek to return Hicks to Australia if the United States did not proceed quickly to lay substantive new charges.

 The charges

David Hicks posing with weapons borrowed from a storeroom in a photo taken in Albania on his first day of training.

Hicks was charged by a U.S. military commission, on August 26, 2004, however that commission was subsequently abolished and the charges thus voided when on June 29, 2006, in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the United States Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were illegal under United States law and the Geneva Conventions.

The indictment prepared for the previously scheduled trial had alleged that Hicks had trained and conspired in various ways, and was guilty of "aiding the enemy" while an "unprivileged belligerent". No specific acts of violence were alleged. He was detained in December 2001.

In the voided indictment of Hicks, the United States government had alleged:

• that in November 1999 Hicks travelled to Pakistan, where he joined the paramilitary Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Faithful).
• that Hicks trained for two months at a Lashkar-e-Toiba camp in Pakistan, where he received weapons training, and that during 2000 he served with a Lashkar-e-Toiba group near the Pakistan-Kashmir.
• that in January 2001 Hicks travelled to Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban regime, where he presented a letter of introduction from Lashkar-e-Toiba to Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda member, and was given the alias "Mohammed Dawood".
• that he was sent to al-Qaeda's al-Farouq training camp outside Kandahar, where he trained for eight weeks, receiving further weapons training as well as training with land mines and explosives.
• that he did a further seven-week course at al-Farouq, during which he studied marksmanship, ambush, camouflage and intelligence techniques.
• that at Osama bin Laden's request, Hicks translated some al-Qaeda training materials from Arabic into English.
• that in June 2001, on the instructions of Mohammed Atef, an al-Qaeda military commander, Hicks went to another training camp at Tarnak Farm, where he studied "urban tactics," including the use of assault and sniper rifles, rappelling, kidnapping and assassination techniques.
• that in August Hicks went to Kabul, where he studied information collection and intelligence, as well as Islamic theology including the doctrines of jihad and martyrdom as understood through al-Qaeda's fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
• that in September 2001 Hicks travelled to Pakistan and was there at the time of the September 11 attacks on the United States, which he saw on television.
• that he returned to Afghanistan in anticipation of the attack by the United States and its allies on the Taliban regime, which was sheltering Osama bin Laden.
• that on returning to Kabul, Hicks was assigned by Mohammed Atef to the defence of Kandahar, and that he joined a group of mixed al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters at Kandahar airport, and that at the end of October, however, Hicks and his party travelled north to join in the fighting against the forces of the U.S. and its allies.
• that after arriving in Konduz on 9 November 2001, he joined a group which included John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"). This group was engaged in combat against Coalition forces, and during this fighting he was captured by Coalition forces.

British citizenship application and rejection

In September 2005, it was realised that Hicks may be eligible for British citizenship through his mother, as a consequence of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Hicks's British heritage was revealed during a casual conversation with his lawyer, Major Michael Mori, about the 2005 Ashes cricket series. The British government had previously negotiated the release of the nine British nationals incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, so it was considered possible that these releases could be extended to Hicks if his application was successful. In November 2005, the British Home Office rejected Hicks' application for British citizenship on character grounds, but his lawyers appealed the decision.

On December 13, 2005, Justice Lawrence Collins of the High Court ruled that then-Home SecretaryCharles Clarke had "no power in law" to deprive Mr Hicks of British citizenship "and so he must be registered". The Home Office announced it would take the matter to the Court of Appeal, but Justice Collins denied them a stay of judgement, meaning that the British government must proceed with the application.

On March 17, 2006, the Home Office alleged during its appeal case that Hicks had admitted in 2003 to the Security Service (British intelligence agency MI5) that he had undergone extensive terrorist training in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

On April 12, 2006, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court's decision that Hicks was entitled to British citizenship. The Home Office declared it would appeal the matter again, its last option being to submit an appeal to Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, no later than 25 April. On May 5, however, the Court of Appeal declared that no further appeals would be allowed, and that the Home Office must grant Hicks British citizenship.

Hicks' legal team claimed in the High Court on June 14, 2006 that the process of Mr Hicks' registration as a British citizen had been delayed and obstructed by the United States, which had not allowed British consular access to Hicks in order to conduct the oath of allegiance to the Queen and the United Kingdom.  His lawyer, Major Mori, as an officer in the United States Marine Corps has the authority to administer oaths and offered to conduct the oath if the British government permitted it.

On 27 June, with Hicks' British citizenship confirmed, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that it would not seek to lobby for his release as it had with the other British detainees. The reason given was that Hicks was an Australian citizen when he was captured and detained, and that he had received Australian consular assistance.

On 5 July2006, Hicks was registered as a British citizen, albeit only for a few hours—Home SecretaryJohn Reid personally intervened to revoke Hicks' new citizenship almost as soon as it had been granted, citing a provision of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 allowing the Home Secretary to "deprive a person of a citizenship status if the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good."  Hicks' legal team called the decision an "abuse of power", and announced they would lodge an appeal with the UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the High Court.

2006 solitary confinement

In March 2006 the camp authorities moved all ten of the detainees who faced charges before the Guantanamo military commissions to solitary confinement. This move was described as a routine measure because of the detainee impending attendance at their tribunals. However The Jurist reported on August 23, 2006 that Hicks remains in solitary, seven weeks following the US Supreme Court's confirmation of a lower court's ruling that the commissions were unconstitutional.According to The Jurist Hicks extended stay in solitary confinement has put his health at risk.

MajorMichael Mori, described Hicks as one of the best-behaved detainees, and said his solitary confinement was unnecessary.

Seizure of Hicks's legal papers

Following the apparent suicide of three detainees, camp authorites seized prisoners' papers.Camp authorities described this as a security measure, claiming that they found notes on how to tie a hangman's noose written on the stationery issued to the lawyers who meet with detainees to discuss their habeas corpus requests.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald the Department of Justice acknowledged in court that "attorney-client communications" had been seized .Hicks's lawyer, MajorMichael Mori questioned whether Hicks could have been part of a suicide plot, since he had spent the previous four months in solitary confinement in an entirely different part of the camps. According to the report, Mori commented that the confidentiality of attorney-client communications was: "...the last legal right that was being respected.", and that: "Now it appears that that's been violated as well"

Punishment

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that Hicks declined a visit from Australian Consular officials because he had been punished for speaking candidly with consular officials about the conditions of his detention on previous visits.

Rod Smith, the deputy first secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, stated:

"It would be a matter of very great concern to us if Australians in detention overseas were punished for simply drawing to the attention of consular officials concerns that [they] have about the conditions of their detention."

HUMAN RIGHTS FOR EACH PERSON REGARDLESS OF AGE, RACE, RELIGION OR POLITICS HOME | CAMPAIGNS | PRISONERS/PRISONS | EXPERIENCES | BOOKS/PRODUCTS | HOW TO HELP | NEWS | EMAIL LATEST NEWS US Supreme Court to hear Hicks, Habib case Wednesday, April 21, 2004. 12:49pm (AEST) Australian inmates Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks will ask the US Supreme Court today to decide whether Guantanamo Bay falls within the jurisdiction of the US legal system. If the court agrees, lawyers for the Australians as well as two British detainees will seek to have their detention declared unlawful. The Law Council of Australia is hopeful the US Supreme Court will allow the inmates to have their cases heard in civil courts. Law Council president Bob Gotterson says the case could set an important precedent. "The fact that the US Supreme Court is looking at that case suggests that it at least thinks that time has come to look again at the whole of the law in relation to jurisdictions of US courts and offshore territories," he said. US lawyer Joseph Margulies represents Mr Hicks and Mr Habib as well as two Britons and says the US cannot continue holding the inmates without due process. "I'm very gratified by the obvious care the Supreme Court has taken in this case, as was reflected in their questions," he said. "The US cannot hold people without some process." The US Supreme Court has already examined the legality of the indefinite detention of about 600 prisoners at the Guantanamo military base in Cuba, who are considered enemy combatants in the US "war on terrorism". The court will decide by June whether the Guantanamo detainees - accused members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, many held more than two years without charge or access to an attorney - have the right to contest their detention in a US court. Mr Hicks's military-appointed lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says the court case is a key to him receiving a fair trial. "I'm not afraid to take on the government in a fair and established justice system," he said. "Give me a US court martial, give us a civilian trial and we'll take them on... and I'm confident we'll prevail. "The problem is the commission process they set up is totally unfair and has no basic fundamental protections to ensure the credibility of a verdict." Mr Hicks's Adelaide-based lawyer Stephen Kenny says even if the court hands down a favorable decision, his client would not be freed immediately. "The court is only looking at whether or not they have jursidiction in Guantanamo Bay. If they decide the US Federal Court have jurisdiction then the matter will be referred back to a lower court to determine the legality of the case. So it may take some years before that is finally resolved," he said. Debate In an intense hour-long debate solicitor general Theodore Olson, speaking for the US Government, insisted US law could not be applied to the inmates, who come from about 40 countries, as Guantanamo is not on US soil. The base is on land leased from Cuba under a 1903 treaty, which Cuba says it no longer recognises. "It's totally artificial to say that because of a provision in the lease, the executive branch can create a no-law zone and not be accountable," argued John Gibbons, lead attorney for the prisoners, most of whom were detained in Afghanistan. "What's at stake is the authority of federal courts to uphold the rule of law," Mr Gibbons said. "If one detainee assaulted another, he would be prosecuted under US law, because no other law is provided there, it's not Cuban law." Mr Olson was on several occasions interrupted by the Supreme Court justices. The government attorney, whose wife Barbara was killed in the September 11, 2001 terror strikes on the United States, began his remarks saying: "The US is at war". Judge John Stevens quickly interjected: "The existence of war is not relevant. Your position does not depend on the existence of war". Judge Stephen Breyer said "the executive being free to do whatever they want, that's the first problem," and others pressed Mr Olsen repeatedly for clarification. Many civil rights groups say the detainees are in a legal black hole. But the administration argues its main objective is to prevent people it considers agents of international terrorism returning to action against the United States. About 20 demonstrators protested outside the high court including Amnesty International and the pacifist coalition Answer. The US may face unprecedented action at the UN's human rights commission this week for allegedly abusing the rights of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects detained at Guantanamo. -- Reuters CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE NEWS PAGE

FREEDOM IS A RIGHT OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS IN A WORLD WHERE LIFE IS VALUED AND PEACE MAY FINALLY BE A POSSABILITY

HOME | CAMPAIGNS | PRISONERS/PRISONS | EXPERIENCES | BOOKS/PRODUCTS | HOW TO HELP | NEWS | EMAIL

Just in case you forgot - read the Universal declaration of Human Rights

Guantánamo Bay: Take action

Amnesty International is calling on the US government to release, or grant a full and fair trial, to all detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.

No person should be transferred to any country where they are likely to be at risk of any form of torture or ill treatment.

Those persons detained as terrorist suspects by the US administration and other governments must be granted their rights under the Geneva Convention.

Please take action on the following cases:

• Omar Deghayes - Libyan national and UK resident
• Mohammed C - Chadian national
• David Hicks - Australian national
• Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab - Yemeni national

Omar Deghayes

Omar Deghayes

Omar Deghayes, aged 35, is a Libyan citizen who has had refugee status in the UK since 1987. He is a trained lawyer and is married with a three year old son.

He was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002, reportedly for a bounty of $5000, and transferred to Guantanamo Bay five months later, where it is alleged he has been tortured. Whilst in Guantanamo, he has become blinded in one eye.

"I underwent systematic beatings every night for three days. Each time, when I was nearly unconscious, I would be thrown back into the cell to await more"

Take action for Omar... (pdf,62Kb)

More testimonies...

Mohammed C

Mohammed C, aged 18, is a Chadian national who has been in indefinite US military custody without charge for three and a half years.

It is believed he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay at the age of 15 where he has been held in solitary confinement in a concrete cell for up to 24 hours a day.

" The Interrogator explained why I was in Camp 5: ‘We made this camp for people who would be here forever. You should never think about going home. You’ll be here all your life.

Maybe one day my son will come to see you as you get old. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you alive so you can suffer more. If you don’t believe me, look at these walls.’ And he banged on the concrete wall to show how solid it was."
Mohammed C (aged 17 at the time)

Take action for Mohammed...(pdf,10Kb)

David Hicks

David Hicks

David Hicks, aged 29, is an Australian national who travelled to Pakistan to further his Islamic studies. Following the 9/11 attacks on the USA he went to Afghanistan to help the Taliban defend Kabul from the Northern Alliance.

He was captured and allegedly subjected to ill-treatment before being handed over to the US authorities. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002, where he has allegedly been tortured, including being beaten for up to 8 hours.

" I have been beaten before, after and during investigations. I have been menaced and threatened, directly and indirectly, with firearms and other weapons before and during investigations" David Hicks

Take action for David...(pdf,64Kb)

Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab

Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab, aged 22, is a Yemeni national who is married with a four year old daughter. He was reportedly working as a teacher in Pakistan, before being arrested in Afghanistan in October 2001.

He was held in US custody in Kandahar and then transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he remains. In Kandahar he was ‘tortured by beatings’ and had his thumb broken by interrogators.

"We have nothing here, no rights, no trials, nothing" Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab

Take action for Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab...