David Hicks : The so called "terrorist."

[accuracy]

As we all now David will be out of Guantanamo Bay soon, this is why i've started a new thread,dedicated to him.

My biggest regret is not starting this thread much sooner, breaking off from the Bush-prison-torture News! thread.

[accuracy]

I won't talk to media - Hicks

20 April 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21589622-5006301,00.html

SELF-confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks will abide by his American plea deal and not speak to the media for a year, says his U.S. military lawyer.

Major Michael Mori today said Adelaide man Hicks would honour his pre-trial agreement struck with the U.S. military under which the Guantanamo Bay detainee will serve a further nine months in a South Australian jail.

The remainder of Hicks' seven-year jail sentence, imposed by a U.S. military commission last month on the charge of providing material support for terrorism, was suspended.

Hicks will return to Australia by May 29.

U.S. prosecutors included a 12-month gag order in the plea deal, banning the 31-year-old father-of-two from talking to the media.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said last month the gag could not be enforced when he returned to Australia but Major Mori said Hicks would stick to the agreement.

"David is focused on his upcoming return to Australia and seeing his family," Maj Mori said today in a statement, released after visiting Hicks for the past four days.

"He is aware there have been comments and speculation in the media regarding the enforceability, under Australian law, of David's requirement not to speak to the media.

"However, David will abide by the pre-trail agreement which requires him not speak to the media for 12 months."

Hicks' lawyers today did not oppose a motion in the U.S. District Court from government lawyers which dismisses Hicks' habeas corpus petition - which effectively challenged his indefinite detention.

Hicks has been held at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

His supporters will hold rallies in capital cities around the country tomorrow to protest his treatment by U.S. authorities.

His father, Terry Hicks, said the protests would focus on the legality of the military commissions created to try Hicks and other Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Mr Hicks Snr described the commission system as a sham, saying the case against his son was politically motivated.

"Everyone is just being too political," Mr Hicks said today. "Every decision that has been made shows that this is political – the gag order, the denial of torture and the timing just before an election."

Mr Hicks said he would not accept government accusations that his son was a dangerous terrorist.

"The information that they say they have had for five years has never been tested and never will," he said.

Mr Hicks said his son, who left school in Year 10, wanted to finish high school and hoped go to go to university next year.

"The government has made out that David is one of the serious bad guys," he said.

"All that he wants to do is finish his studies, see his girls and get on with his life."

[accuracy]

Hicks' dad 'still has no answers'

April 21, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21597892-1702,00.html

THE father of confessed terrorist David Hicks says he still wants to know what evidence led to his son's five-year detention at Guantanamo Bay.

The 31-year-old Adelaide-born father of two is expected back in Australia by late next month to finish his sentence, after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism before a military tribunal on March 31.

Hicks, who was held by US authorities at Guantanamo Bay for five years after he was captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, was sentenced to seven years, with all but nine months suspended.

In Melbourne today to speak at a rally, Mr Hicks said his son's case was still not resolved even though he would return to Australia by May 29.

“We still need to know what this so-called evidence (is) that they had against David,” Mr Hicks said.

“David's pleaded guilty to nothing - all he's done is pleaded guilty to supplying material support for terrorism, but what is it? No one knows.

“If David Hicks is guilty of anything, what's wrong with our proper judiciary court system to test out this evidence?”

Mr Hicks also spoke out against a 12-month ban on speaking to the media imposed by the military tribunal on his son, saying it was political.

“David's pleaded guilty under a plea bargain (but) when you look at the evidence, all he's been charged with is by association,” he said.

“It's quite strange too that all this great evidence they've had and been touting about for the last five years and he gets nine months.”

Mr Hicks said he did not know in which Australian prison David would serve his sentence.

He said David may speak out after the gag period ends but should be allowed to sell his story.

“We know the law says that you can't make profit or gain out of these things but I think David should still be given a chance to speak out on how he's been treated and how the Australian Government have treated him,” he said.

“I think John Howard still has a lot to answer for.”

Although the Government has said David owed them more than $300,000 for what were believed to be legal costs, Mr Hicks said nothing was said about him paying it back.

“Maybe they should let him write a book - that would make enough money to pay the Government back and they should be satisfied with that, but no, they've gagged him on that for the rest of his life.”

The Government has said it would not attempt to prevent Hicks speaking to the media, but that it would prevent him selling his story under proceeds of crime legislation.

Greens leader Bob Brown, who spoke at the rally at the State Library of Victoria, said he did not believe people should profit from misdemeanours.

“But Hicks has pleaded guilty under threat of going back to Guantanamo Bay and which of us wouldn't consider that under those circumstances?” he said.

[accuracy]

Guantanamo detainee talks about David Hicks


Youtube video- 03.47 min

http://sjc-static17.sjc.youtube.com/vi/kYmSAWrsN-E/2.jpg

British former Guantanamo detainee Ruhal Ahmed, whose story forms the basis of the movie 'Road to Guantanamo', talks about David Hicks and the treatment he is undergoing at the hands of his US captors.


Guantanamo detainee talks about David Hicks - YouTube

[accuracy]

DAVID HICKS TORTURE AT GITMO

Youtube video-07.31 min

"The U.S. Terror State tortured and he... The U.S. Terror State tortured and held David Hicks without a hearing for 4 years. Then the U.S. crafted an illegal agreement and a judge actually signed it, knowing it was illegal."


http://sjl-static6.sjl.youtube.com/vi/l_9TUDydpJI/2.jpg

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[accuracy]

David Hicks on Trial pt 4 of 6

Youtube video-08.50 min

" Brings together in one forum the main players in the case of David Hicks- the prosecution, the defence, the Australian government and Hick's family.

Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, Colonel Moe Davis, and Hicks' defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori go head to head."

http://sjc-static14.sjc.youtube.com/vi/WTK43usxTyQ/2.jpg


YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[accuracy]

Hicks's crimes were minor: US military prosecutors

Saturday, April 28, 2007
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1908852.htm

In her detailed account of David Hicks's time at Guantanamo Bay, ABC journalist Leigh Sales has made public the previously private views of his US prosecutors.

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200703/r134788_454126.jpg
US military prosecutors share their thoughts about David Hicks in a new book. (Reuters)

In Detainee 002: The Case of David Hicks, Sales reveals the United States military prosecutors described Hicks as a man of "no personal courage or intellect" who submitted when he was questioned.

"I think he read Soldier of Fortune magazine too many times," said John Altenburg, the top US official in the Office of Military Commissions from 2004 to last year.

"His case was a very ordinary case; there was nothing special about it in that clearly he was but a foot soldier, not a leader or a planner ... for people wanting to see the worst of the worst, this was not going to be it."

Sales writes the prosecutors said the convicted Australian's crimes were relatively minor compared to those of his fellow inmates, damaging the Federal Government's description of Hicks as a dangerous terrorist.

Hicks was detained for five years at the American military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism.

He was sentenced to nine months' jail and is due to be returned to a South Australian jail by the end of May.

© 2007 ABC

[accuracy]

Hicks could profit from book: report

April 30, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21643968-5005962,00.html

LEGAL experts say David Hicks could profit from sales of any book about his exploits because he is not bound by Australian proceeds-of-crime laws.

The Federal Government might not be able to stop Hicks from keeping the profits from any book he writes about his involvement with the Taliban in Afghanistan and his detention by the United States at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, News Limited reports.

Dean of Law at the University of Sydney Ron McCallum and Melbourne Civil Liberties lawyer Robert Richter QC share the view that Hicks is free to keep the profits, while Melbourne University Press has received similar legal advice.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock is confident that changes made by the Federal Government to the proceeds-of-crime laws, specifically to prevent Hicks profiting from the book, will work.

But Mr Richter believes the nature of Hicks' conviction, before a US military commission, might fall outside the legal definitions contemplated by Australian laws.

“Even though the legislation says it includes proceedings in front of a military commission established by President Bush, I think there is enough there to say that that won't wash,” he said.

Hicks pleaded guilty at a US military commission last month to one count of providing support to a terrorist organisation.

Chief Executive of Melbourne University Press Louise Adler said the book “should be published”.

“We could be quite interested in what he has to say and I think there would be a number of publishers interested in the story,” she said.

Mr Ruddock told the Nine Network's Sunday program this month that the government would use the laws to ensure Hicks would not be able to profit.

“On the advice that I have, the legislation clearly does apply,” Mr Ruddock said.

[accuracy]

Visit David Hick's Website

http://www.fairgofordavid.org/images/David23.jpg

Enter Site


http://www.fairgofordavid.org/

[james777]

the reason he's getting the "no media communication for a year deal" is because he'll be dead and buried long before the year is up.......you know they're gonna inject him with some sort of fast killing disease..........you actually think they're gonna let him speak out, common, Nazi germany has migrated west, hear me?

[accuracy]

'David Hicks still being demonised'

03 may 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21663947-5005962,00.html

THE father of confessed terror supporter David Hicks says the demonising of his son continues with concerns over community safety following his release from prison.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann has written to Prime Minister John Howard raising concerns over the ongoing security issues and has asked if the federal government will move to place a control order on Hicks.

Mr Rann has also promised to introduce legislation into state parliament if necessary to stop the 31-year-old from selling his story.

But Hicks' father Terry today said his son would not be a security threat once released from jail and just wanted to get on with his life.

"The demonising of David Hicks is still going on, more so now from the state government than the federal government,'' Mr Hicks told ABC Radio.

He said the state government now appeared concerned that David Hicks would "wreak havoc'' once he was released.

But, he said, that was the last thing on his son's mind.

"David wants to get on with his life, he wants to finish his schooling, he wants to try and catch up with his family and just move on,'' Mr Hicks said.

In his letter to Mr Howard, the SA premier raised what he said were grave concerns over the safety implications associated with Hicks' release into the Adelaide community.

"I therefore seek your urgent advice as to the measures the commonwealth government has approved or is contemplating to ensure appropriate levels of protection of community safety and security,'' he said.

"I am sure you will agree that the South Australian government and the South Australian public have a right to know about the conditions applying to Hicks' release.''

In particular, Mr Rann questioned if the federal government would seek a control order over Hicks under 2005 terrorism laws.

He also promised to pass legislation stopping Hicks profiting from any book on his exploits even though he supported a person's right to tell their story.

But, Mr Hicks said his son had no intention of writing a book.

"At this point in time, that's the furthest thing from David's mind,'' he said.

But he also questioned the motives of both the state and federal governments in trying to block the move.

"What are they frightened of?" he said.

"Are they frightened that David is going to name people in relation to how the government has looked after him?''

Hicks, 31, will be transferred to a South Australian prison by May 29 to serve a nine-month jail term after he pleaded guilty to a charge of providing material support to terrorism.

The rest of his seven-year sentence was suspended after he spent more than five years in US military detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before facing trial.

Two correctional services officers from South Australia will travel to Cuba to escort Hicks back to Australia.

Copyright 2007 News Limited.

[accuracy]

Senators to discuss Hicks rules

May 10, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21704739-5005962,00.html

SENATORS will today discuss regulations which set the framework for David Hicks' return to Australia - just days before the convicted terrorism supporter is due home.

The Australian Democrats are concerned the regulations, tabled in the Senate yesterday, could be invalid.

Hicks, who has been held at the United States military prison at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years, is expected to return to Australia as early as next week after his lawyers struck a plea deal with the US in March.

According to Hicks's plea deal, the 31-year-old Adelaide man must be moved out of his cell at the military prison in Cuba and handed over to Australian authorities by May 29.

The regulations were released at the end of March but because the Government didn't table them until yesterday the Senate Regulations and Ordinances Committee could not examine them.

Democrats foreign affairs spokeswoman Natasha Stott Despoja wrote to the head of the committee, Senator John Watson, early last month raising a number of concerns about the regulations.

She is worried there will be inadequate time to properly examine the regulations given Hicks' imminent return.

Senator Stott Despoja said she was glad the committee would be finally examining the regulations.

"I have a number of concerns about the validity of the regulations, and wrote to the chair of the committee in early April to bring these concerns to the committee's attention," she said.

"Unfortunately, the committee has been unable to scrutinise the regulations until this week, as they were only tabled today - despite having been in effect since the end of March."

[accuracy]

Hicks home next week

NHADA LARKIN

May 13, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21722294-5006301,00.html

CONFESSED terrorism supporter David Hicks probably will be returned to Australia "beyond the end of this week", says Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer.

Mr Downer today said that despite media speculation that Hicks could arrive in his hometown of Adelaide as early as Thursday, that was not the case.

"No exact time for his return has been determined yet," Mr Downer told journalists in the Adelaide Hills town of Stirling.

Hicks' Australian lawyer, David McLeod, this morning left Adelaide bound for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the 31-year-old father of two has been in U.S. military custody for more than five years.

Mr Downer said there were logistical issues to take care of and it was "very unlikely" Hicks would return to Adelaide this week.

"He won't be coming back on Thursday," he said. "It's unlikely it will be on Sunday but it's likely it will be in the next 10 days or so beyond the end of this week."

Under the agreement reached with the U.S. government, Hicks is supposed to return to Adelaide by May 29 to serve seven months in Yatala Labour Prison.

Hicks, 31, was sentenced to a total of seven years jail with all but nine months suspended after pleading guilty to a charge of providing material support for terrorism before a U.S. military commission in March.

The Muslim convert, who was captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001, admitted having trained with the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Mr McLeod will meet Australian embassy officials in Florida before heading to Guantanamo Bay to advise Hicks on signing documents which will authorise his transfer to Australia.

"I suspect that his imprisonment at Yatala will be a cake walk compared with what he's been putting up with at Guantanamo," Mr McLeod told reporters at Adelaide airport.

"It feels terrific, this is the seventh trip to Guantanamo Bay for me and who would have thought that it would take seven visits to achieve what should have been done a long time ago?"

"But it's very rewarding to know that on this occasion I'm going over to bring him back."

Details of Hicks' return are being kept under wraps for security reasons, but it is expected he will be flown home on a chartered flight with Australian law enforcement officers on board.

In January, 2005, Sydney man Mamdouh Habib was released from Guantanamo Bay without charge and returned to Australia on a private, government chartered jet.

No notification of his return was made until minutes before the plane touched down in Sydney.

Copyright 2007 News Limited.

[accuracy]

Hicks 'doesn't want to tell story'

May 15, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21734622-5005962,00.html

CONFESSED terrorist supporter David Hicks has no desire to tell his story of years of detention at Guantanamo Bay, his American military lawyer says.

Pentagon lawyer Michael Mori said today that final preparations were being made to transfer Hicks from the military prison in Cuba to Australia, under his plea deal signed with US prosecutors in March.

Secrecy surrounds the details, but Hicks will be returned - to Adelaide's Yatala jail - by May 29.

The 31-year-old has been detained for more than five years after his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

"David is committed to putting the time he has spent at Guantanamo Bay behind him and he has no desire to speak about it," Major Mori said after visiting Hicks during the past week.

"David is aware there have been comments and speculation in the media generated from other people that David may try to profit from his past experiences.

"David has no intention of trying to profit or sell his story. He desires to put this part of his life behind him.

"He knows there will be people who will hound him to break this commitment."

Hicks's Australian lawyer David McLeod arrived in Miami today en route to Cuba to help with Hicks's transfer.

Mr McLeod and Australian embassy staff will accompany Hicks on his return to Adelaide.

Under the agreement reached with the US Government, Hicks is supposed to return to Adelaide by May 29 to serve the remainder of his sentence in Yatala Labour Prison.

He was sentenced to a total of seven years' jail with all but nine months suspended after pleading guilty to a charge of providing material support for terrorism at a US military commission in March.

He is expected to be released in late December.

Maj Mori will not be make the journey to Australia.

A clause banning Hicks from speaking to the media for a year was included in the plea deal but Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said last month that the gag order could not be enforced in Australia.

Maj Mori said Hicks wanted to thank the many Australians who supported him during his detention but was aware of a possible community backlash on his return.

"David is aware that there is speculation on whether he poses any danger to his community upon his release," Major Mori said.

"David knows that he will have to prove himself to many people and he is committed in doing so.
"David is fully committed to complying with any requests made of him by the South Australian Government or Commonwealth Government upon his release from prison at the end of this year."

[accuracy]

Australian minister says return of Guantanamo prisoner is secret

By Rod McGuirk
ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 17, 2007
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070517-0118-australia-guantanamo.html

CANBERRA, Australia – The United States and Australia have finalized plans to repatriate Australian al-Qaeda supporter David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay but the timetable will remain secret, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday.

Hicks will be sent to a maximum security prison in his hometown of Adelaide when he arrives by chartered jet as early as next week from the U.S. military prison in Cuba where he has spent more than five years.

The 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner must be repatriated by May 29 under the conditions of a plea deal struck in March. His case marked the first U.S. war crimes conviction since World War II.
Downer said Hicks would return “fairly soon,” but law enforcement authorities wanted his arrival kept secret until he was behind bars. Hicks will serve a nine-month sentence in Australia.

The logistics of flying Hicks half way around the world were further complicated by the United States' refusal to allow him to enter American air space, Downer said.

“Some countries won't let people supporting al-Qaeda pass through their territories, not least the United States of America, so we can't bring him back via the shortest route,” Downer said.

Hicks' Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, said his client was “upbeat” about his impending return to Australia.

“I think David is looking forward to putting this part of his life behind him,” Mori told Sydney's Southern Cross Broadcasting by telephone from Cuba.

“He knows he's got to prove himself to a lot of people and he's willing to take that challenge,” he added.

Hicks was captured by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in December, 2001, and became one of the first terrorist suspects to be transferred to the U.S. naval base in Cuba. He pleaded guilty to providing material support to al-Qaeda.

[accuracy]

Welcome back to Australia, David!!!

I thought this day would never come.

(See below post :D :D :D :D :D :D :D )

[accuracy]

Hicks transported to Australian jail


May 20, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21762808-2,00.html

DAVID Hicks will spend the next seven months at Yatala Labour Prison, Adelaide's maximum-security jail and home to South Australia's toughest criminals.

The confessed terrorism supporter was transferred today to the prison after flying in from Guantanamo Bay to Edinburgh RAAF base in Adelaide's outer northern suburbs at 9.50am (CST).

Hicks's Australian lawyer David McLeod said the convict was "visibly elated" when he arrived on Australian soil, still wearing the orange jumpsuit given to him at Guantanamo Bay.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5491593,00.jpg
Jail ... a police convoy carrying former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks arrives at the Yatala Labour Prison near Adelaide / Reuters

A convoy of seven vehicles drove Hicks straight through the jail's gates and into the prison compound at about 10.40am (CST) as a crowd of about 20 curious onlookers and a large media contingent watched from outside the prison walls.

A short time later, the Federal Government confirmed Hicks's arrival in Adelaide in a joint statement from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock.

Mr Downer said a $500,000 charter flight was the only practical way to return Hicks to Australia because security and logistical problems meant he could not be returned on a commercial flight.

Yatala Labour Prison

Inside jail, Hicks will be strip-searched and examined before being moved to solitary confinement and given standard-issue prison clothes.

He will be assigned to a cell in the prison's Division G, reserved for the state's toughest criminals including the Snowtown "bodies in barrels" murderers John Bunting and Robert Wagner.

Prison guards will constantly supervise the 31-year-old Muslim convert who is expected to remain locked inside his 2x4m cell for 23 hours a day.

But for a man who has been held in far worse conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Yatala jail may seen like luxury.

The San Francisco Chronicle in an editorial earlier this year described Guantanamo as "America's best known dungeon" and a "tropical purgatory", while Amnesty International labelled it as the "gulag of our times".

Guantanamo Bay

When Hicks was first detained at the US military base in January 2002, a month after he was captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan, he was held in a makeshift wire cage in Camp X-Ray.

During that time, Hicks's lawyers complained that the former Adelaide man had been tortured by prison officers – claims that were rejected by US and Australian authorities.

Hicks also withdrew the accusations in his guilty plea deal signed with US prosecutors in March.

Hicks's most recent home in Guantanamo before returning to Australia was at Camp 6, a large newly built white maximum security prison in Cuba.

His cell there was a sparse 7.4sq m room with no window to the outside world and a concrete slab for a bed, lined with a thin foam mat.

He will face similar accommodation at Yatala but the smell of freedom around the corner may make the next seven months the easiest of Hicks' more than five years in detention.

In March, Hicks was sentenced to a total of seven years jail, with all but nine months suspended. He will serve the remainder of those nine months at Yatala and is scheduled for release at the end of December.

Media gag order

Hicks's father Terry said he did not expect to see his son for up to a week but would urge him to speak to the media after being released.

"I think that what we've got to do is explain to David the facts of life, that the media won't let him go until he's spoken to them so what we're going to do is hold a press conference for everybody," he said.

Speaking publicly would breach Hicks's 12-month gag order, but Mr Hicks said the Government was unlikely to react.

"Once he's in the (prison) system we can get a meeting with the jail to find out visitation rights, what we can take in to him and what we can bring away for him and that sort of thing," he said.

[accuracy]

Hicks back in solitary confinement

Sunday, May 20, 2007
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1927926.htm

Convicted Australian terrorism supporter David Hicks is back behind bars after being escorted from Guantanamo Bay to Adelaide on a chartered jet.

Hicks will not be allowed to mix with other prisoners at Yatala Prison but he will serve out his sentence alongside some of Australia's most notorious criminals, including infamous bodies-in-the-barrels killers John Bunting and Robert Wagner.

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200705/r144809_505772.jpg
Homecoming: David Hicks (in red overalls) is escorted off the plane in Adelaide. (Reuters)

He will be kept in solitary confinement in South Australia's highest-security ward, G Division, as he serves the rest of his nine-month sentence.

Hicks will be allowed out of his cell for one hour a day. He will also be granted several personal visits a week, once his health and risk level have been assessed.

His father, Terry Hicks, is hoping to see his son in the next few days but says it may take longer.

"It's probably going to be over a week before we can visit with David," he said. "We're going to be patient."

South Australian Deputy Premier Kevin Foley says Hicks should not be treated as a hero now he is home.

"He's cost a lot of people a lot of pain," he said.

"He's cost taxpayers millions of dollars and he's put his father to hell and back."

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office estimates Hicks's return to Australia on a Government-chartered private jet cost more than $500,000.

Control order

Now that he is back on home soil, the Australian Federal Police is set to decide what restrictions should be placed on Hicks when he is released.

The South Australian Government wants a control order placed on Hicks when he is released on December 29.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he cannot say if the former Guantanamo Bay detainee is dangerous.

"Really, I don't know and I can't form a personal view in relation to those matters," he said.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd is also reluctant to say whether Hicks should be placed under a control order.

"To pre-judge that I think is wrong," he said.

Rehabilitation hopes

Mr Foley says he hopes Hicks uses his time in prison to reflect on his behaviour.

"He should be thinking long and hard about how he is going to conduct himself and rehabilitate himself when he walks from prison," he said.

Hicks's lawyer, David McLeod, says the Adelaide man plans to be a model prisoner and is not proud of his notoriety.

Mr Mcleod says Hicks will take advantage of rehabilitation services.

"He wants to get on with his education, he wants to complete high school and if possible, go into university..." he said

"He was generally very relieved and grateful to the Australian taxpayer for bringing him home, very grateful for the Federal Government and the South Australian Government for allowing him to serve out the balance of his time here in Adelaide close to his family."

Mr McLeod says his client will not challenge his imprisonment or try to profit from his story.

Mr Ruddock today revealed one of his regrets about the case, saying he wished he had made it clear to Australians all along that the Government was lobbying hard behind the scenes for Hicks's release.

© 2007 ABC

[accuracy]

HICKS 'ELATED'

Yatala term begins

May 20, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21761198-5006301,00.html

AFTER spending more than five years in solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks arrived in Adelaide aboard a government-chartered aircraft at Edinburgh RAAF base at 9.50am and was rushed under intense security to Yatala.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5491606,00.jpg

He did not speak with his father, Terry, yesterday, and it was unlikely he had been able to contact his children.

He did, however, reveal to his Adelaide lawyer David McLeod, who travelled with him from Cuba, his desire to become an "ordinary prisoner" and his intention to study ecology and zoology when released from Yatala.

Wearing white sneakers and Yatala's orange prison suit - not dissimilar to his Camp X-Ray outfit - a handcuffed, unshackled and free moving Hicks was led from the Gulfstream V aircraft, a short way across the Edinburgh tarmac and into a prison van by two Correctional Services officers.

It was a contrasting scene to Hicks' days at Guantanamo Bay when he was forced to wear a heavy belt and shackles on his ankles and wrists outside his cell.

The 24-hour flight, which cost taxpayers $500,000, left from Cuba on Saturday morning, flew over Mexico, and stopped to refuel in Tahiti before arriving in Australia.

A high-security convoy of STAR Group police, six police motorcycles, and Correctional Services officers surrounded Hicks as he was driven the 20km route from Edinburgh to Yatala along Waterloo Corner, Port Wakefield and Grand Junction roads.

Hicks, who could not be seen inside the van – which had tinted rear windows – entered the main gates of Yatala about 10.40am.

Dad won't see Hicks today

Hicks' father Terry is due to return to Adelaide from Sydney later today after attending a weekend protest rally.


Mr Hicks said he did not expect see his son until the end of the week and had not yet spoken to Mr McLeod.

"We won't see him today, we won't see him tomorrow, possibly maybe by the end of the week," Mr Hicks told ABC radio today.

"We knew darn well that we weren't going to get any access to him at all, not at this point anyway.

"Once he is in the system then we can see what their processes are and we abide by that and we will go through the visitation rights.

"We have been waiting for this long now so a couple of extra days is probably no skin off anybody's nose."

Hicks is free to tell story

The federal government confirmed Hicks' arrival in Adelaide in a joint statement from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock.

Mr Downer and Mr Ruddock said the safety of the Australian community was the top priority for law enforcement agencies as they determined security arrangements for Hicks' accommodation in jail.

"Law enforcement and security agencies are working together to determine appropriate security arrangements," they said.

"Consistent with long-standing practice, the government does not intend to detail these measures, but the community should be assured that public safety is the primary concern."

The Australian Federal Police declined to comment on whether it would seek a control order once Hicks is released from jail.


Mr Ruddock earlier today said Hicks would be free to tell his story once he was released, and he did not believe a gag order imposed on him by the US would be enforceable.

However, he would not be allowed to profit from his story.

Flying Hicks home cost $500,000 - Government

Meanwhile, taxpayers will foot a bill of about $500,000 to cover David Hicks' charter flight from Guantanamo Bay to Adelaide, the federal government has confirmed.

In a fact sheet accompanying a joint statement today, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer confirmed the cost of the charter was "approximately $500,000".

Hicks, who has confessed to providing material support for terrorism, touched down in Adelaide this morning after five years in detention at Guantanamo Bay.

He was accompanied on the Gulfstream V flight by his Australian lawyer, David McLeod, two South Australian corrections officers, two federal police officers and a doctor.

On top of the cost of returning Hicks, the government had spent more than $20,000 transporting the "accompanying parties" from Australia to the US and Guantanamo Bay, Mr Ruddock and Mr Downer's statement said.

The government has said it was not possible for Hicks to be sent home on a commercial flight, as the US would not allow him to transit through American airspace or stop on US territory.

On his return to Adelaide, Hicks underwent normal immigration and customs procedures, the government said.

Taxpayers' money wasted - Greens

Federal Greens leader Bob Brown has accused Prime Minister John Howard of wasting taxpayers’ money by flying convicted terrorist David Hicks back to Australia on a private jet.

Senator Brown said a cheaper option would have been for Hicks to return on a commercial flight under the control of police guards.

“It’s now been turned into high political farce by the Howard government – special planes, secrecy, high drama,” Senator Brown told reporters in Hobart.

“But in most Australians’ minds is a sense of absurdity, this never should have happened.

“David Hicks should have been on Australian soil and in Australian courts over four years ago.

“This is John Howard’s personal mistake here.

“This should have been fixed up years ago, and now, at huge expense to taxpayers, we are seeing this farce occurring as Hicks is brought home with this huge media attention, which would never have been there, and would since have passed, if the right thing was done.”

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5491565,00.jpg
David Hicks (in orange) is escorted from the charted jet after being flown from Guantanamo Bay to Adelaide's Edinburgh

[accuracy]

Hicks's new prison 'a Hilton' compared to Cuba

Monday, May 21, 2007
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1928983.htm

David Hicks's lawyer says he is confident his client will adjust well to Australian prison life.

Hicks, a confessed terrorism supporter, arrived in Adelaide yesterday from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to serve the remainder of his nine-month sentence.

Authorities at Yatala Prison in the city's north are deciding how Hicks will be managed at the jail's high security G-Division.

David McLeod says the South Australian prison system will be more favourable to his client than Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"He's moving from a prison facility operated and run by interrogators to a prison facility operated and run by Correctional Services staff," he said.

"The focus in the former is in respect of interrogation and the focus of the latter is rehabilitation, so I think he'll find it's like moving from a campsite into the Hilton."

Acting chief executive of Correctional Services Greg Weir says Hicks, who underwent an assessment today, will be kept isolated from other prisoners.

Mr Weir said the assessment included an education program to prepare Hicks for release in December.

"We look at all his individual needs, his health, his welfare, psychological services that might be required," he said.

"In the next week or so, we'll prepare a detailed management plan into the future for him, specifically tailored to his needs."

Mr McLeod says Hicks is particularly anxious about how he will be received by the public once he has released at the end of the year.

"He wants to come to terms with that and I think he'll be utilising all the psychological and social welfare facilities available at Yatala - he needs a lot of help," Mr McLeod said.

"That said, he doesn't want any special favours, he doesn't want the public to think that he's receiving something that he oughtn't receive and whatever he does receive he'll be very grateful for."

The South Australian Public Service Association says David Hicks could receive his first visitor in Adelaide's Yatala Prison as early as this weekend.

Spokesman Peter Christopher says Hicks may get some privileges.

"The contents of any individual's cell would be dependent on their security risk and rating," he said.

"They may be allowed books, TV, those type of items, once again, an individual assessment is made on a prisoner by prisoner basis."

[accuracy]

Habib's 'Big Relief' at Hicks Return

20/05/2007

Jane Holroyd



If David Hicks' government-chartered flight back to Australia was anything like fellow Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib's, it would have been a first-class, Hollywood-packed 22 hours.




Mr Habib said he remembered his flight in January 2005 as a comfortable experience, during which he was well-treated and entertained by a string of movies including Troy starring Brad Pitt.




"I did not sleep at all because I was watching movies," Mr Habib told theage.com.au. "I have no complaints about my treatment on the flight."




Mr Habib said it was a great relief that David Hicks had left Guantanamo Bay because he would soon have the chance to tell his story.




"It's a big relief that David Hicks is home," Mr Habib said. "We can show who is right and who is wrong. Any question can be answered."




Mr Habib said he expected the majority of Australians would treat David Hicks with respect once he was released from Adelaide's Yatala Labour Prison at the end of the year. "If (Hicks) is honest with people in the streets and stands up for his rights then people will respect him."




Mr Habib said he looked forward to shaking hands with David Hicks, although he did not know whether the Australian Government would allow him to meet the convicted terrorism supporter in Yatala, or even after Hicks had served his nine-month jail sentence.




While the two men shared adjoining cells for a time at Guantanamo Bay, they never had the opportunity to shake hands. "I've never done it," said Mr Habib. "He was (my) next-door neighbour but I was not able to touch his hand because of the mesh and metal."




He said he was eager for news of fellow Guantanamo inmates. "First I would ask how it was at Guantanamo Bay, how the people and the treatment were after I left. Was it better, or worse?"




"I'll ask him about people. They have a lot of innocent people, young kids. I want to ask him about them."




SOURCE: TheAge.com.au

[accuracy]

Hicks's first visitor in Adelaide jail

May 23, 2007
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1931099.htm

The convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks has had his first visitor since his transfer to a jail in Adelaide from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Hicks arrived back in Adelaide last weekend.

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200607/r93739_504959.jpg
David Hicks's Australian lawyer David McLeod has visited him in Adelaide's Yatala jail. (ABC TV)

Lawyer David McLeod spent 30 minutes with Hicks in a meeting room in the maximum security G-division at Yatala jail.

He says Hicks is in good spirits, his complexion has improved and he is still getting used to having fewer restrictions than when he was at Guantanamo Bay.

"He's been able to listen to the radio and appreciate what people are saying about him," Mr McLeod said.

"The change in environment is such that he's been used to basically asking whether he can go to the toilet, when he can go to the toilet and for how long he can go to the toilet where he's come from at Guantanamo Bay.

"He's found that he doesn't have those same restrictions here and he's found that a little odd."

Mr McLeod says Hicks is looking forward to a visit from his family this weekend.

"He displayed a relaxed disposition and he was pleased to see me," he said.

The Correctional Services Department has finished a health and risk assessment of Hicks.

It will decide in the next week how Hicks will spend his time while in jail.

Mr McLeod says he and Hicks talked about his new prison guards and Hicks's hopes of becoming a worthy member of society once he is released at the end of the year.

[accuracy]

David Hicks' trial was a political fix by two governments

Tim McCormack

May 21, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/hicks-trial-a-political-fix-by-two-governments/2007/05/20/1179601235371.html

NOW that David Hicks is back in Australia to serve out the rest of his sentence at Yatala, it is opportune to reflect on the implications of his "trial" for the future of the US military commission process. It is not a pretty picture.

One of Major Michael Mori's recurrent criticisms of the proposed US military commissions (mark I and II) was the complete lack of judicial independence from the executive arm of the US Government. He repeatedly used a cricketing analogy, likening the trial process to the absurd scenario of dispensing with the independent umpire and allowing the bowlers themselves to determine whether or not to declare the batsmen out lbw.

Although the outcome for David Hicks is unquestionably more favourable than he could have expected, the manner in which that outcome was achieved constituted an appalling indictment of the military commission process. Any antecedent doubts about Mori's characterisation of the inherently political character of the process were obliterated in the course of the proceedings in Guantanamo Bay.

Throughout the week of the "trial", we were repeatedly assured by US military authorities that we were witnessing a "fair and transparent process". The most transparent reality for me was the utter opacity of virtually all issues of substance — resolved as they were outside the courtroom and beyond public scrutiny (or else avoided altogether by the convenience of the guilty plea). The pre-trial agreement was negotiated in Washington before the trial even began and those negotiations excluded both the sitting judge and the prosecution.

Despite that fact, the trial began as if there were no such agreement and, even after the existence of the agreement was revealed, the trial proceeded as if the agreement did not exist.

The single most glaring example of procedural irrelevance involved the jury of 10 senior officers drawn from the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and flown to Guantanamo Bay on the aircraft of the Defence Secretary. The officers, of the rank of colonel or equivalent, received instructions from the judge that they could award a maximum sentence of seven years for the charge of providing material support to a terrorist organisation. The jury listened to impassioned pleas from the prosecutor for the maximum sentence and from the defence for leniency.

They retired for two hours and returned to deliver the maximum sentence. Only after their role had concluded and they were excused from the court did they discover that their determination was utterly irrelevant to the actual sentence Hicks will serve. What must they have thought when they discovered that their efforts were superfluous?

So much of what transpired in the courtroom seemed to constitute an elaborate charade — an absurd pretence of fairness and transparency in the face of a blatant political fix. At the final news conference the prosecutor, Colonel Mo Davis, could only explain the incongruity of his repeated assertions that Hicks deserved a 20-year sentence but only got nine months by conceding that "I did not negotiate this deal" and it was done by Mori "over my head" in Washington.

This transparent lack of transparency exposed two governments desperate to get the case resolved and off the agenda and prepared to accept an extraordinarily short term of imprisonment for one of the "worst of the worst" of the world's terrorists.

One non-government organisation representative observing the trial contrasted to the media at the end of the process the party line that "David Hicks is a serious threat to our way of life and when the facts finally come out folks will understand why he is such a dangerous person" with the reality that he received a sentence equivalent to a drunk-driver who hasn't hurt anyone.

The pre-trial agreement meant that the US Government could avoid any scrutiny of the actual evidence it had against Hicks and the manner in which it was obtained. The agreement also obviated the need for the judge to deal with the potentially serious defence motion on prosecutorial misconduct by Davis in the public suggestions that Mori may have violated the US Code of Military Justice by arguing against the fairness of the commission process.

But the conveniences of a pre-trial agreement could not obscure the fact that the content of the agreement and the way it was negotiated confirmed the inherently political character of the military commission process and the potentially irreparable damage to the rule of law in persisting with it.

The Bush Administration is intending to spend $US150 million ($A181 million) to construct a new, state-of-the-art courtroom facility at Guantanamo Bay exclusively for future trials by military commissions.

The Hicks case quite possibly provided the strongest imaginable ammunition for those in the US who want to terminate the military commission process immediately.

If the building project goes ahead, the edifice will stand as a monument to a perversion of the long and admirable tradition in the US of commitment to justice and the rule of law.

(Tim McCormack is the Australian Red Cross professor of international humanitarian law at the Melbourne Law School. He attended the proceedings against David Hicks in Cuba in March as an adviser to the defence team on law-of-war issues.)

[accuracy]

Habib to call Hicks as witness

Article from: AAP
24-05-07
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21785793-5005962,00.html


DAVID Hicks can expect to be called as a witness in a Federal Court compensation claim being pursued by Mamdouh Habib, his former neighbour in Guantanamo Bay.

This could throw into question the gag order placed on Hicks, as well as any control order the government may take out against him, Fairfax newspapers reported today.

Mr Habib alleges he was tortured while a prisoner in Egypt and that Australian officials were present during his interrogations.

The Government denies Habib's claims and also his allegation he was taken to the Australian High Commission in Pakistan and threatened with the loss of his citizenship.

Hicks, who has admitted to providing support for terrorism, arrived back in Australia from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on the weekend.

Mr Habib was a prisoner at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005 after being detained in Pakistan and then sent to Egypt for six months.

He was released without charge and in 2005 told a Fairfax paper he had met Hicks at a guesthouse in the Pakistan city of Lahore in mid-2001.

Central to Mr Habib's claim is an affidavit tendered by Hicks in seeking British citizenship. In the affidavit Hicks says he was shown a photograph of a battered Habib and told he would be sent to Egypt for similar treatment if he did not cooperate.

[accuracy]

Hicks in good spirits, says father

May 26, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21798075-5005962,00.html

CONFESSED terrorist supporter David Hicks is in good spirits and regaining fitness, according to his father Terry Hicks.

Mr Hicks today met with his son inside Adelaide's Yatala jail for the first time since his return to Australia last Sunday.

Hicks, 31, will be imprisoned at Yatala until late December this year after being detained for more than five years at a US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Mr Hicks, his wife Bev and their daughter Stephanie met with Hicks in a non-contact visit this afternoon.

"He was in pretty good spirits,'' Mr Hicks said.

"He has regained a lot of colour and lost a lot of weight.

"He was very chatty. He's really interested in getting on with his education at this point in time, which is something we will start pushing for him.''

Hicks pleaded guilty at a US military commission last month to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

He will serve the last nine months of his jail sentence in the maximum security wing of the Yatala prison in Northern Adelaide and is due to be released about December 29 this year.

[accuracy]

Hicks alone and thinner

LAUREN NOVAK

May 27, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21799862-2682,00.html

A THINNER David Hicks spent most of his first week at Yatala alone in his cell, with inmates claiming he is not allowed to look at the guards who pass him.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5499764,00.jpg
FIRST VISIT: Terry Hicks and wife Bev enter Yatala prison yesterday for David's first visit on home soil. Main picture: NEON MARTIN.

Hicks had his first contact with family on South Australian soil in more than seven years yesterday.
His father Terry Hicks, step-mother Bev and sister Stephanie visited Hicks for the first time since the confessed terrorism supporter was brought home from Cuba's Guantanamo Bay last Sunday.

Mr Hicks, who arrived about 2pm and emerged at 3pm, said his son was in good spirits.

"He's regained a lot of colour and lost a lot of weight, which is good," Mr Hicks said.

"He's looking real good but that doesn't mean to say he's 100 per cent."

Other visitors to the prison yesterday heard Hicks had lost so much weight he looked almost sickly.

"My partner said he doesn't look very well," said one woman, who did not want to be named.

She also said her partner, in jail over a vehicle incident, said guards walking past Hicks' cell told him to "bob his head down and not to look at them".

Hicks is not allowed contact with other prisoners, which Mr Hicks said could be for "his own protection".

He spends one hour a day outside his cell.

"He gets his exercise period and his fresh air," Mr Hicks said.

"It's strange, I suppose, for David at this time to have a full night's sleep without being woken up and having the lights on.

"It's a lot different from Guantanamo . . . there's no armed guards walking up and down the corridor. He's got no complaints at this stage."

The family were not allowed to take Hicks anything and he made no requests.

There were no early-morning nerves for Mr Hicks, who slept well the night before being reunited with his son.

However, he admitted: "You never like visiting anyone in prison."

Mr Hicks strolled calmly towards waiting media, and then continued to the prison security gate alone. His daughter and wife avoided the cameras. He said he felt "no pressure" visiting his son in SA, unlike their visits at Guantanamo, and was excited to see him.

The family spoke to an unshackled Hicks from behind a glass window for 30 minutes.

The "general" conversation, monitored by two Correctional Services officers, was not overly emotional but Hicks was "very chatty" and relieved to be back in SA, Mr Hicks said.

"He's got familiar smells of Adelaide and he knows he's pretty close to home," he said.

"He's been kept up (to date) pretty well with what's been happening while he's been away.

"He knows there's groups out there that have been supporting him."

Mr Hicks said his son was keen to continue his education and to study ecology and zoology. They did not discuss Hicks' conviction or time at Guantanamo Bay.

When asked if Hicks expressed any remorse for his support of terrorism, Mr Hicks said: "I'm not getting into that."

The family did discuss visiting rights and Hicks made it clear he expects to see his children Bonnie and Terry.

They will appear with their mother Jodie Sparrow on 60 Minutes tonight.

Mr Hicks told his son about the interview, but would not go into detail about his reaction.

Although he did not believe justice was done, Mr Hicks said his son was "not interested in appeals".

"He just wants to go through the system . . . I think the political issues are used up now," he said.

"Even now this issue I think was still dealt with the wrong way round but we wear that, David wears that and we get on with life. It's been a long fight, now he's back. What more could we want?"

Mr Hicks was happy to be photographed outside the prison.

[accuracy]

Prison bosses to reject Hicks photo request

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1929764.htm

The South Australian Correctional Service Department says it is highly unlikely it will release a photo of David Hicks.

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200705/r144809_505772.jpg
The media was only allowed this brief glimpse of Hicks when he arrived at RAAF Edinburgh (Reuters)

The 31-year-old confessed terrorism supporter arrived at Adelaide's Yatala Prison from Guantanamo Bay at the weekend, to serve the remainder of his nine-month sentence.

Hicks's father Terry is expected to request that a photo of his son be released to stop any picture being secretly taken in jail and sold.

A spokesman for the department says there are strict rules against visitors using cameras in Yatala Prison in Adelaide.

The department says it will consider the request if it is received, but no images of prisoners in the high security division have been released previously.

[accuracy]

Ex-de facto visits Hicks in prison

May 27, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/exde-facto-visits-hicks-in-prison/2007/05/27/1180205073366.html

The ex-de facto wife of convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks visited him for the first time since he was returned to Australia.

Jodie Sparrow described Hicks as fine and normal after meeting him at Adelaide's maximum security Yatala prison, the Nine Network reported.

Ms Sparrow said Hicks became emotional when she told him their two children wanted to see their father.

"He's fine and he's pretty normal," she said.

Ms Sparrow said she had passed on a message from their children Bonnie and Terry.

"They said they love him and miss him and look forward to seeing him."

Asked how Hicks reacted, she said: "I think he was really excited and emotional, knowing that his kids are going to be there to support him."

Hicks, 31, is serving a nine-month sentence at Yatala after being transferred from the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held for more than five years as an enemy combatant.

He pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism at a US military commission hearing last month.

In interviews recorded before the visit, Hicks' children said that while they resented their father for abandoning them about ten years earlier, they were prepared to give him another chance.

His daughter Bonnie, 13, said she opposed what Hicks had done.

"He fought against us and decided to go with the Taliban people," she told the Nine Network.

But she did not consider him a terrorist.

Bonnie said she could let her father, whom she calls David, into her life again.

"If I get to know him and trust him more, then maybe."

Asked what that would take, she said: "Prove to me and my brother that he cares about us."

Hicks' 12-year-old son Terry had been suspended from school after fighting over taunts about his father, the Nine Network reported.

"I got told that he went and trained with the terrorists," said Terry, who was too young to remember the last time he saw his father.

The boy said he felt bad and disappointed about Hicks' activities but still loved him.

The 60 Minutes story showed Hicks had written letters to his ex-de facto wife and children from Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks and Ms Sparrow started their relationship when he was 17 and she was 20.

Ms Sparrow said she had told the children Hicks was different from his public image of being a suspected terrorist.

"I can't see him being like that, not at all," she said of Hicks' time in Afghanistan, where he was captured fighting with the Taliban.

"My belief is that he's been brainwashed. That's what I think," she said before the visit.

"I think that he's gone to them because he's craving for his family environment.

"It's weird."

Ms Sparrow welcomed Hicks' release from Guantanamo Bay.

"I'm glad he's back here, and I'm glad that he's out of that place.

"I can't see him meaning to hurt anybody. Not the Dave I knew, anyway."

She had conditions about allowing the children to visit him.

"I don't want the kids to go in there if he's still got the slightest belief in what he was involved in."

Hicks father, also called Terry, has said he would be disgusted if Ms Sparrow sold her story for money.

Mr Hicks visited his son at Yatala on Saturday and reported that he was in good spirits.

© 2007 AAP

[accuracy]

Jail led Hicks back to his children

28th May 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=28&ContentID=29858

It is a horrible question for a child: “Do you think your dad is a terrorist?” For Terry Sparrow, the 12-year-old of son of David Hicks, the reply was: “I got told he went and trained with the terrorists.”

His answer fits findings of Hicks’ US captors, who convicted him not of being a terrorist but a terror supporter and returned him to Australia.


So what is a terrorist? Terry’s reply: “Oh they’re people with tea towels on their head, they kill people, they’re suicide bombers. That’s all I know.”

Last night, Hicks’ children, Terry and Bonnie, 14, went on television with their mother Jodie Sparrow, 34, with mixed feelings about the father who left them 10 years ago.

Bonnie does not consider him her father. “I call him David,” she said. She felt his five years in jail was long enough and did not think he was a terrorist but that some Australians had a right to be angry because “he fought against us”.

Her mother told 60 Minutes Bonnie was scared about seeing her father because she was afraid he would walk out on her mother again. “I think that’s her biggest fear and that’s why she’s got walls put up all around her,” Ms Sparrow said.

But she said he had no right to reenter their lives after he left suddenly when she broke off the relationship.

She said this might have been when Hicks, 31, converted to Islam but, like her daughter, she does not believe he is a terrorist. “I can’t see him meaning to hurt anybody, you know,” she said. “Not the Dave I knew.”

She said Hicks was isolated from almost all contact at Guantanamo Bay but reached out to his estranged family and others in letters.

In one he thanked Ms Sparrow for her efforts with the children.

“Thank you for doing a great job of bringing them up,” he wrote. “You’ve always been an excellent mother. As soon as I stop writing this I’m going to write to the children. It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve done my whole life. What do I do? What do I say?”

Later, to his daughter, he wrote: “I miss you Bonnie and I think about you all the time. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms and give you a big hug and kiss . . .

“When it comes to these types of things I’m like a kid. We will just be like best friends. Be a good girl for your mother. I love you so much.”

But Ms Sparrow said Hicks would “probably not” have written to her and the children if he had not been held at Guantanamo Bay.

“That does make me wonder and the kids have asked me that, if he wasn’t caught, would he be writing to us now, would we hear from him?” she said.

“My answer is probably not. I don’t think so.”

She said she was shocked when she was told what her former partner did overseas with the Taliban.

“No, I had no idea who or what they were or anything and then, like the way I sort of got explained it, was like he was a soldier on the back of a camel,” she said.

“And then we’re sitting there and like they said they’d captured an Australian and that and yeah, on their home turf.”

Channel Nine would not comment on whether or not it paid for the interview.

SYDNEY

[accuracy]

No profit for Hicks' story

May 29, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21814239-5006301,00.html

LEGISLATION will be introduced to stop confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks from selling his story, the State Government said today.

Attorney-General Michael Atkinson said legislation would be introduced to state parliament this week to cover any loopholes in federal laws that Hicks might seek to exploit.

"I am concerned that Hicks may try to profit from telling the tale of his exploits, his detention and his conviction," Mr Atkinson said.

"Questions have also been raised about the adequacy of federal legislation with the prime minister saying the Commonwealth may have to act to close any loopholes.

"We are not going to take any chances that the gap will be left unfilled.

"That is why we are proposing the South Australian parliament pass this bill to stop him selling his story."

Hicks, 31, returned to Adelaide earlier this month after being held for more than five years at a US military prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

He will remain in Adelaide's Yatala Labour Prison until late December after pleading guilty last month to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

The charge related to the time he spent serving with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Mr Atkinson said court documents presented at Hicks' military commission trial showed he received training in guerilla warfare, weapons, kidnapping and assassination.

He said the same documents revealed Hicks was issued with an automatic rifle, ammunition and grenades.

Mr Atkinson said he supported the right of any one to tell their story but did not support a convicted person, like Hicks, profiting from such activity.

"This bill will not prevent him writing about his exploits, or telling it to someone else, but it will prevent him making any money from that process," the attorney-general said.

"This is not a bill to gag Hicks, but to stop him profiting from his exploits."

[accuracy]

Hicks won't appeal despite ruling

June 05, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21852335-5006301,00.html

THE father of David Hicks says his son faced an illegal court but won't be appealing his terrorism conviction.

Terry Hicks said today if his son appealed, he risked a seven-year jail sentence, instead of getting out of an Australian prison in December.

US military commission judges today threw out prosecution charges against a Canadian-born footsoldier for al-Qaeda and a man accused of being Osama bin Laden's driver.

The judges said they didn't have jurisdiction to hear the charges, but Hicks appeared before a military commission in March and pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism.

"This is one of the contentious claims still on David, that the commissions are still deemed to be illegal even though they tried David - well, they didn't try him, they gave him some options,'' Mr Hicks said.

"I still think the process is illegal but David can't test it. If he appeals and he loses, he could get the full seven years, he'll get full tote odds.''

Under a plea agreement, Hicks in March was given a seven-year jail sentence with all but nine months suspended.

Hicks returned to Australia last month to serve the rest of the term in Adelaide's Yatala jail.

He agreed in his plea bargain that he was an "alien unlawful enemy combatant as defined by the Military Commissions Act''.

In both commission cases at Guantanamo today, the judges found they didn't have jurisdiction to proceed because the accused had not been classified as "unlawful enemy combatants'' as required by a 2006 Act of Congress - they had only been categorised as "enemy combatants''.

David Hicks' lawyer says the infamy of US military commissions has been highlighted by judges throwing out two cases against Guantanamo Bay detainees.

"It just demonstrates the unpredictability, haphazardness and randomness of the whole thing,'' his Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod, said today.

"There is no precedent, no background against which any of the decisions can be measured. It highlights the disgrace or the infamy of the whole process.''

Mr McLeod said Hicks had "bought certainty'' by striking a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism.

Meanwhile Terry Hicks said it was interesting a "flimsy little play on words'' could render the military commissions illegal.

"If the whole procedure is thrown out, will David be compensated?''

Today's surprise rulings involved Toronto native Omar Ahmed Khadr, 20, and Yemeni-born Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 36.

The US government requested a 72-hour delay to the rulings while it considered an appeal, but the envisioned appeals court has yet to be created.

[accuracy]

Honorary membership for Major Mori

June 29, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21990165-29277,00.html

THE US military lawyer who led David Hicks' legal fight against terrorism charges tonight became an honorary member of the Australian Bar Association.
Major Michael Mori was acknowledged for his "exceptional service to justice and the rule of law'' at the association's conference dinner, in Chicago, USA.

Association president Stephen Estcourt QC praised Major Mori as a fearless and passionate advocate for Hicks, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

"This award of honorary membership recognises the work done by Dan Mori in consistently seeking to have his client dealt with fairly and in accordance with the rule of law,'' Mr Estcourt said.

"It is the time-honoured role of an advocate to stand between the state and and individual. Major Mori did that and did it in the best tradition of an advocate.''

Hicks, who was convicted of providing material support for terrorism, has been removed from Guantanamo Bay to complete the rest of his sentence in South Australia's Yatala Prison.

In accordance with his plea bargain, Hicks will be released on New Year's Eve.

Major Mori has been re-assigned as a staff judge advocate to the commanders of the US Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, in San Diego.

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Hicks faces control order


October 23, 2007
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/smh33.html

Justice Minister David Johnston and Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty have today refused to speculate about the conditions likely to be placed on convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks after his release from prison.

Their comments follow an ABC Radio report this morning that AFP officers advised Hicks they would be applying for a control order, which would restrict his movements and communications.

However, Senator Johnston said strong measures were needed because there was a "huge degree of difference" between criminal and terrorism offenders, while Mr Keelty said control orders had proven to be "useful tools'' in dealing with terrorists.

Meanwhile, the terrorism supporter's father says he hopes to meet with AFP officials to discuss the terms of any control order on his son.

Terry Hicks today said news of a possible control order was no surprise, but he remained concerned it could be unfair and could ruin his son's life.

"The thing that worries me is that they could go overboard with it and destroy someone's life in the meantime," Mr Hicks said.

The Greens and Australian Democrats have condemned any such move, saying the orders violated people's liberties.

Senator Johnston this afternoon confirmed Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers had visited Hicks in Adelaide's Yatala jail, but he would not confirm an earlier ABC Radio report that the officers advised Hicks they would be applying for a control order.

The control order would restrict Hicks's movements and communications and require him to regularly report to police for up to 12 months, the ABC said.

"I'm not going to speculate what conditions they've put on," he told reporters.

The only other Australian who has ever been subject to a control order - Melbourne man Jack Thomas - is currently awaiting a retrial on terrorism-related offences.

Senator Johnston rejected the criticism of control orders by The Greens and Australian Democats.

"I hope we never blur the line there because the sort of measures we need to undertake with respect to terrorism offences are unique - they are very, very strong and they need to be so,'' he said.

"Measures in respect to people's liberty in terms of the criminal justice system are totally different and have a lot more flexibility thankfully.''

Senator Johnston said the decision to apply for a control order on Hicks was for the AFP to make and he was confident it would make the right decision.

Mr Keelty told reporters on the Gold Coast today he did not publicly discuss control orders because it would jeopardise police anti-terrorism efforts.

"It's not going to work if we keep publicly disclosing what we are doing, and I don't want to comment at all on what we might be doing with Mr Hicks," Mr Keelty said.

He said control orders had been used responsibly by police.

"Certainly, they have proven to be useful tools, and the courts, on occasions, have supported the use of control orders," Mr Keelty said.

"Since the introduction of the suite of new terrorism legislation, one thing I hope has been demonstrated in Australia is that we have been very responsible in the application of the new laws."

He said the AFP had to balance legal advice and operational needs in making a decision about a control order.

The AFP needs the federal Attorney-General's permission to ask a magistrate to approve the control order on Hicks.

Hicks was detained by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba, from January 2002, a month after his capture with Taliban forces in Afghanistan until he was repatriated to Australia this year.

He is due to be released from custody on December 30.

AAP

Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Howard denies deal with Cheney on Hicks

October 24, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-denies-deal-with-cheney/2007/10/24/1192941112516.html

Prime Minister John Howard has denied striking any deal with US Vice President Dick Cheney over convicted Australian terrorist David Hicks, but said today he had pushed for an end to the case.

US magazine Harper's quoted an unnamed military official saying that one of his staffers was present when Mr Cheney interfered directly to get Hick's plea bargain deal.

"He did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with Howard," the unnamed official told Harper's.

Former US chief prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis has backed the Harper's article, telling News Limited (Eds: The Australian) that he was subjected to high-level political interference in his handling of the Hicks case.

But Mr Howard said today that he did not suggest the wording or terms of a suitable outcome on the Hicks case to Mr Cheney.

"No. I just said I wanted the matter resolved," Mr Howard told ABC Radio.

"The terms and conditions of the plea bargain were matters that were concluded within the American legal system.

"I said to the Americans: 'Hurry up and get this matter resolved, it's been going on too long. If you are not prepared to charge him we will ask that he be sent home'."

Hicks was transferred from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to Yatala prison in South Australia, in May to serve his nine month sentence, which was secured as part of a plea bargain with US military prosecutors that involved a guilty plea on a single terror offence.

Meanwhile, Mr Howard said he had "no idea" about Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty's comments made in The Bulletin magazine that he personally warned prosecutors there was insufficient evidence against Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef.

Dr Haneef spent four weeks behind bars after being charged with recklessly providing support to a terrorist organisation, by giving a SIM card to a second cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, in England in 2006.

The charge against Dr Haneef was dropped in July this year as the then director of public prosecutions (DPP), Damian Bugg, conceded there was insufficient evidence.

"Mick Keelty does not take directions from me," Mr Howard said.

"I knew nothing of this Bulletin article until it appeared."

AAP

[accuracy]

Hicks secret name plan

October 28, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22659664-5006301,00.html

DAVID Hicks is considering changing his name and plans to study at university when he is released from jail in December.

His father Terry revealed to the Sunday Mail the family's new plan to introduce the convicted terrorism supporter back into society after a total of six years in custody.
Mr Hicks, who visits his son in Yatala Labour Prison every Sunday, said the 32-year-old had no plans to "wrap a towel around his head" and contact al-Qaida when freed on New Year's Eve.

The family plans to carefully hide his image so he can assimilate into society without being recognised or targeted.

"The only thing we have going for us so far is that nobody knows what he looks like," Terry Hicks said.

"Changing his name is a possibility."

He said his son planned to study ecology, zoology or geology at university when released, and was anxious to reunite with his two children and family.

"I think the most important thing to him will be to lead a normal life – to walk around a shop, to walk around a school," he said.

"But overall he just wants to get out of there."

Terry Hicks also revealed how dramatically institutionalised his son had become during years of solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay and how he struggled on his arrival in prison in Australia earlier this year.

When he first arrived back in Australia Hicks could not even walk from his cell inside Yatala without being commanded.

"After that long in solitary confinement, you become reliant on the person looking after you," he said.

"(At Guantanamo Bay) they become your life. They open the door; they tell you when to step through the doorway.

"Here, they just open the door and walk away.

"But he wouldn't go. He's not used to doing things – even small things like that – on his own anymore."

Mr Hicks is investigating psychological help for his son and will seek out experts who have counselled Vietnam Veterans and prisoners of war.

"I believe that is effectively what he is – a prisoner of war," he said.

All he wanted was for his son to be able to lead a "normal life", he said.

Hicks has no immediate plans to write about his time in prison, but his father said he would be keen to co-author the story of his life if he changed his mind.

"David's not really interested in doing that right now," he said.

"That's looking back for him and he doesn't want to do that. His focus is moving forward and getting on with his life."

Mr Hicks said David had been "excited" to see his children, Bonnie and Terry, again after so many years and said the visit went well.

Mr Hicks said he believed his son's plight was still a political issue and also spoke of how the ordeal had changed his own politics.

Years of lobbying politicians for his son's release had made him more "cynical and suspicious".

"I never used to care who I voted for," he said.

"I'd always been a Labor voter – always.

"Now I look at the policies of each party and think about how they will affect me.

"I don't believe we should have troops in Iraq. To me that is a country that has been invaded.

"Saddam Hussein was an evil person but with the technology we have these days I would have thought we could have got rid of him without the civilian casualties."

Mr Hicks, who was once approached by the Democrats to stand for the Senate, said his focus now was ensuring his son's wellbeing when he was released.

[accuracy]

11th December 2007

http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=443985

Confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks is mentally fragile and unlikely to have the strength to fight a proposed control order, his lawyer says.

Lawyer David McLeod says a control order on Hicks will be sought in an Adelaide court within weeks.

But he says the former Guantanamo Bay inmate is mentally exhausted and fragile ahead of his release from Adelaide's Yatala jail later this month.

Mr McLeod said the Australian public would be puzzled as to why the newly-elected Labor government would want Hicks to be placed under a control order, which would likely restrict his movements and require him to report regularly to police.

He said Attorney-General Robert McClelland had agreed to a request from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to seek a control order on Hicks.

The paperwork was being reviewed by the solicitor-general, he said.

The AFP would not confirm or deny whether it had sought the control order which, if granted, would be only the second imposed in Australia.

But Mr McLeod expected it to be filed in the Federal Magistrates Court by the end of next week, and he would then speak to Hicks about whether to fight the application.

"David is in a mentally fragile state and unlikely to have the strength to challenge an application for a control order," he told AAP.

Mr McLeod said the public, most of whom supported the return of Hicks to Australia after more than five years in the US military's Guantanamo Bay jail, would be confused by the government's move.

"There will be a large number of the Australian people who voted for this government because of the Hicks case and they will be puzzled at why the attorney has made a decision such as this," he said.

"David Hicks has been treated as a political prisoner here in Australia and the United States for the last six years.

"The attorney had a chance to close the chapter on David Hicks but instead he has chosen the pathway of the previous government in its treatment of this man by continuing to demonise him."

Asked about the issue in October, while still opposition leader, Kevin Rudd said a Labor government would take advice from the AFP about any control order.

A US military commission in March this year sentenced Hicks, 32, to seven years jail with all but nine months suspended after he pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism.

Under a plea bargain, Hicks was returned to Australia in May to serve the remainder of the sentence.

Hicks, a father of two, was caught in December 2001 by US forces in Afghanistan, where he had been fighting with the Taliban.

Mr McLeod said Hicks was "mentally exhausted by the whole process" after the legal battles with US prosecutors on a plea deal and his subsequent return to Australia in May.

Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, said there was no need to monitor his son.

"All David wants to do is get on with his life, get a job and go to university, he's not going to be any harm to anybody," Mr Hicks told ABC radio.

Australia's first control order was imposed last year on Melbourne man Jack Thomas, who is facing retrial on terror-related charges.

Under the order, Thomas, a Melbourne father of three, was confined to his house between midnight and 5am, ordered to report to police three days a week, banned from leaving Australia without permission and restricted in what phones he could use or who he could speak to.

Those conditions were relaxed slightly in August but Thomas remains banned from contacting terror organisations and must report to police three times a week.

The High Court in August this year dismissed a constitutional challenge by Thomas to the validity of the control order legislation.

AAP

[accuracy]

Garry Linnell

December 15, 2007 05:00pm
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22928845-5005369,00.html

DAVID Hicks has begun plotting his prison escape - but that's the easy part. Once free, the one-time terror supporter may face months on the run.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5801607,00.jpg
A NEW LIFE: David Hicks is preparing for life on the outside after five years detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He will be released from a South Australia jail on December 29.

On December 29, Australia's most controversial prisoner is due to be escorted from his cell in the maximum-security G Division of South Australia's Yatala Prison and led to the front gates.

Waiting beyond them will be a new kind of hell for the 32-year-old former soldier of jihad.

David, please meet your new Goliath: a voracious battalion of media stormtroopers.

Hicks, one of few Australians to have met Osama bin Laden, who trained in al-Qaida-linked camps and was captured in Afghanistan serving with Taliban forces, is clinging to the hope that he can remain anonymous and return to a simple, unaffected life in Adelaide.

Like so many of the plans he has made, this one is laced with naivety and almost doomed from the start. Outside those gates will be one of the largest media packs assembled in Australia.

Hicks was captured by the Northern Alliance in December 2001 and handed over to the US military for a fee of $US1000. But the price on his head will be considerably higher this time around.

Few have seen him since the late 1990s and his features are said to have changed considerably from the several aged and out-of-focus photos now in existence.

Hicks wants to keep it that way.

He has received plenty of advice that his best tactic in handling the approaching storm is to make a statement or have one read on his behalf, let himself be photographed and sate the media's appetite, before departing into obscurity.

But Hicks has always had a stubborn streak that, despite many of the changes he has undergone in recent years, remains in force.

And so he, his father Terry, and lawyer David McLeod have begun planning his exit from Yatala.

"He's nervous and anxious,'' Mr McLeod said. "Nobody knows what he looks like and he wants to be released with a minimum of fuss.''

Said Mr Hicks of the coming showdown between his son and the media: "They'll want their piece of flesh. But at this stage David doesn't want to make any appearances. He just wants to come home and live a normal life.''

No one is willing to talk about the details of just how such a plan can be pulled off. But both the South Australian and Federal police have offered assistance.

"It's a fluid plan and it will have to be flexible,'' Mr McLeod said.

Sources have revealed that Hicks may be secretly transferred in the days leading up to his scheduled release to another prison -- possibly to Mobilong, an hour from Adelaide, or the more secluded Port Augusta Jail, four hours from Yatala.

Under the deal that saw Hicks return to Australia this year to complete his sentence, he agreed to a gag order preventing him from speaking about his experiences until the end of March.

While it is likely he will consent to a TV interview after that date (the favoured option is the Nine Network's Ray Martin, a critic of the Australian Government's handling of the case), it potentially means Hicks, if he wishes to remain anonymous until then, faces months of pursuit by paparazzi.

But getting Hicks out of prison and hidden from public view is one thing. The bigger task facing Team Hicks will likely be in the months and years to come.

So how does a man with such notoriety, whose case divided his country and its politicians, who has been incarcerated for six years (much of it in solitary confinement) and who, by so many accounts, has a naive and uncomplicated view of the world, blend back into a normal life?

"He's going to need time -- a lot of time -- to assimilate into a normal type of life,'' Mr McLeod said.
"He's been totally institutionalised for almost six years, and while Yatala's been the Hilton hotel compared to Guantanamo, he will find it difficult to settle back into a normal life.''

There are 26 cells inside Yatala's G Division, a home for the depraved, the notorious, the mad and the overwhelmingly bad. For Hicks, this life is as close to normal as he has experienced in almost a decade.

Each prisoner is secluded and woken about 7am. Breakfast is usually toast and spreads, lunch an array of sandwiches, and dinner, normally served late in the afternoon, can range from roasts and casseroles to fish and chips.

A solitary stroll in the exercise yard is supervised by three guards. But that is the only company that David Hicks enjoys. Prisoners never mix with each another.

Inside his self-contained cell, where even the shower nozzles are hidden inside the wall to minimise all potential hanging points, Hicks has been watching television, reading and studying.

Having forsaken Islam during his early years at Guantanamo, he would now like to obtain a degree in ecology or zoology at Adelaide University.

In his cell is a university entrance examination paper, but in recent weeks he has put it aside. The deadline for admissions passed last month and he will be ineligible to enrol until 2009. First, he must prove he has reached the required academic standards; still a big task for someone expelled from school at 14, even if he spent much of his time cramming while in Guantanamo.

Hicks has received counselling to assist in coping with his experiences in the past six years -- he alleged was badly mistreated by US guards -- but his father believes life in the outside world will pose just as many stressful challenges.

"Once he's out of the system, it's going to be a shock to him,'' Mr Hicks said. ``When he was in Guantanamo he had so much time on his hands. He has less in Yatala and already he's finding it difficult to deal with.

"Having to follow more of a set routine is going to place a lot of pressure on him and I suppose employers will need to be lenient (in regards to) that and understand what he's been through.''

According to Mr Hicks, several prospective employers have already contacted him indicating they would be willing to give his son work after his release from jail.

He won't say what type of jobs they are, but revealed the offers come from supporters of Hicks' argument that he was wrongly captured, wrongly imprisoned and wrongly convicted.

"There have been a few offers,'' Mr Hicks said. "David could do anything. He's not afraid of anything ... regardless of how dirty it is.''

In a letter to former prime minister John Howard in early 2005 pleading his case to return to Australia, Hicks wrote: ``I like to think of myself as a true-blue Aussie. Australia is in my heart and forever will be.

"I have walked her sandy beaches and rugged coastlines. Been a jackaroo in the northern bush and shorn sheep in the south. Its memories and character live on inside me.''

But one thing Mr Hicks says his son will not be doing following his release is requesting a new passport and heading back overseas. He paused for a moment when asked about this. With just a trace of irony in his gravelly voice, he said: ``I think David has done enough travelling.''

Like that of many fathers and sons, the relationship between Terry and David has been complicated. The early days when Hicks left school and began getting into trouble, before he headed into the bush to become, among many things, a kangaroo skinner, were fraught with arguments and disagreements.

But now that David is back on Australian soil, Mr Hicks says they have grown much closer.

On most Sunday mornings, Mr Hicks drives the 25 minutes from his home in the Adelaide suburb of Salisbury Park to the prison in Northfield to spend 30 minutes with his son.

"It's a very quick 30 minutes, let me tell you,'' he said.

Hicks is normally dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt (G Division prisoners often wear black to differentiate them from prisoners in other sections of Yatala) and their meetings always end with Mr Hicks telling his son he loves him and Hicks telling his father the same thing.

"It's a lot stronger (the relationship),'' Mr Hicks said. ``He's definitely changed. He's a different fella ... very different. He's matured so much. Look, we've always had our ups and downs and who doesn't? But it's been an incredibly emotional time for him.''

A fortnight ago, Hicks was visited by his two children with former partner Jodie Sparrow.

"That's always emotional for everyone,'' Mr Hicks said.

Meanwhile, if a book is to be written, Mr Hicks said, he would co-write it with his son. The tale will span Hicks' early years, his time with Islam and his support of al-Qaida's motives, his years in prison and his claims that he was regularly beaten during interrogations and at one stage offered the services of a prostitute for 15 minutes if he would spy on other detainees in Guantanamo -- an offer he says he rejected.

A Boy's Own adventure? In one of his first letters home, penned from Pakistan, Hicks' immaturity was evident as he gushed about his latest exploit: "Peshawar is three hours from the Afghanistan border -- it's a lot bigger than Adelaide.

"Pakistan produces all the fruit and vegies I've seen in Adelaide, plus so many more. I have seen so many things and places. I've learnt so much. My best adventure yet. Action-packed.''

It's not the same son that Mr Hicks said he now sees each week and, while he admitted David would face difficulties he has not even foreseen, there was an edge of pride in his voice that a wild son had begun to settle down.

But no matter how well conceived and executed the plan is for Hicks' life on the outside, much is likely to depend on whether the Australian Federal Police secure a control order against him.

The order would require Hicks to report regularly to police, but such a requirement needs approval from Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland.

Hicks' supporters had been hoping that Bob Debus, the former NSW attorney-general, would be appointed. Mr Debus took a strong interest in the Hicks case and spoke openly against the
Howard government's handling of the case, its refusal to question the US's handling of Hicks' incarceration, and its delay in striking the deal to return him to Australia.

But Mr McClelland may also be sympathetic. He said earlier this year that the process faced by Hicks during his military commission trial had been ``shortsighted'' and unfair. But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is not regarded as a strong Hicks supporter.

Mr McLeod said he expected the order on Hicks to be filed in the Federal Magistrates Court by the end of this week and he would then speak to Hicks about whether to fight the application. He believed Hicks' case needed to be put in perspective.

"He's not in prison for having murdered someone or raped someone,'' Mr McLeod said. " He's been found guilty of association with something that has happened a long way from South Australia ... he's been in (Yatala) more for thought crime than anything else.

"Why would you put someone on a control order for activities that were not in breach of Australian law, even if they were true at the time?

"He's been a model prisoner. He's studied inside. He hasn't gotten into trouble or wanted to cause any trouble. If he wanted to challenge his whole experience he could. But David wants to go forward in his life. He wants to be Joe Citizen.''

[accuracy]

December 21, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22958243-948,00.html

TERRORISM supporter David Hicks will be subject to a control order when he is released from prison in eight days' time.

A federal magistrate has ruled Hicks will be put under a curfew and have to report to police three times a week when he is released from jail.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) sought the order from the court before Hicks's scheduled release from Yatala jail in Adelaide on December 29.

Federal Magistrate Warren Donald today granted the control order on Hicks, whose lawyers did not oppose the AFP's application.

Hicks becomes the second Australian to be placed under a control order, the other being Melbourne man Jack Thomas.

"I'm satisfied that coupled with the defendant's views expressed and his capability and training ... that the defendant is a risk of taking part in a terrorist act," Mr Donald said.

He imposed a midnight to 6am curfew on Hicks, who will have to report to a police station three times a week.

Other control order conditions include Hicks not being permitted to leave Australia and if he owns a mobile phone, it must have a SIM card approved by the AFP.

Hicks is serving the rest of his US-imposed sentence for providing material support for terrorism at Yatala jail in Adelaide's north.

A US military commission in March sentenced the 32-year-old to seven years in jail, with all but nine months suspended after he pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism.

Under a plea bargain, Hicks was returned to Australia to serve the rest of his sentence at Yatala prison.

The father of two was detained in December 2001 by US forces in Afghanistan, where he had been fighting with the Taliban, and spent more than five years without trial in Guantanamo Bay.

Australia's first control order was imposed last year on Mr Thomas, who is facing trial on terror-related charges.

The High Court in August this year dismissed a constitutional challenge by Mr Thomas to the validity of the control order legislation.

[accuracy]

Australia judge limits ex-Guantanamo inmate Hicks

Thu Dec 20, 2007
By Rob Taylor
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2007-12-21T054348Z_01_SYD239723_RTRUKOC_0_US-AUSTRALIA-HICKS.xml&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The only Guantanamo Bay inmate convicted of terrorism offences, Australian David Hicks, will have to obey a curfew and tough restrictions when he is released from jail next week, an Australian court ruled on Friday.

But a separate court said an Indian doctor accused of terrorism offences and barred from the country should have his visa reinstated after he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

A judge in Adelaide, where Hicks is serving out a seven-year jail term ending early on December 29, agreed to a police request for a control order on the man dubbed "Australia's Taliban".


"I'm satisfied that coupled with the defendant's views expressed and his capability and training ... that the defendant is a risk of taking part in a terrorist act," Federal Court magistrate Warren Donald told the court.

He said Hicks would have to obey a midnight to dawn curfew and report to police three times a week upon release. He would not be allowed to leave Australia and any mobile phone card would need police approval.

Hicks, 32, was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and spent five years in Guantanamo before becoming the first person to be sentenced under the alternate war crimes tribunals created by the Bush administration to try non-American captives.

The former kangaroo skinner admitted training with al Qaeda and meeting Osama bin Laden, who he described as "lovely", according to police evidence given to the court.


Police lawyer Andrew Berger told the Federal Court judge that Hicks took part in four al Qaeda training camps between January and August 2001, writing letters home describing bin Laden as "lovely brother, everything for the cause of Islam".

"This is not a man who was full of hot air," Berger said.

The control order on Hicks is only the second under new anti-terrorism laws introduced after the September 11 attacks.

The first was against Melbourne terror suspect Jack "Jihad" Thomas, a former taxi driver found guilty, then exonerated, and then ordered to face trial again last year on charges of accepting money from al Qaeda.


Under the plea bargain with U.S. military authorities, Hicks agreed to a gag order barring him from talking about his experiences for a year, ending on March 26, while any money offered for interviews could be confiscated under Australian law.

Separately, a Federal Court judge in Melbourne upheld a previous appellate court order for the government to reinstate former terrorism suspect Mohammed Haneef's Australian work visa.

Haneef, a hospital doctor, was detained by police for 12 days in July and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization by giving his mobile phone card to a cousin accused of involvement in failed car bomb attacks in the United Kingdom.

The charges were withdrawn, but Haneef was forced to return home to India when the former conservative government refused to give back his work visa.

The new Labor government said it may appeal against the ruling to Australia's peak High Court.

[accuracy]

28th December 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=447683

Convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks' lawyer says his client's main priority is to assimilate into the community.

The former Guantanamo Bay inmate is scheduled for release from Adelaide's high security Yatala Prison after 8am (CDT) Saturday.

Lawyer David McLeod says Hicks may talk to the media despite a gag order that continues until March next year.

But his main focus is to assimilate into the community after spending six years in jail.

"He realises that he has his work cut out for him in trying to assimilate back into a normal life, but that's his hope and desire," Mr McLeod told ABC Radio.

"He wants to be able to be in a position to support himself as quickly as possible."

Mr McLeod said he is not sure how Hicks will cope with the media pack that will be camped outside Yatala prison on Saturday morning.

"He is very much focused on getting out of jail and getting back with his family and the actual media event that's being arranged by the media is something that is of less significance for him than his actual release."

Support groups say Hicks will need rehabilitation to adjust to life outside of jail but it could prove difficult because he has not been offered any assistance.

Prison Fellowship Australia member Geoff Glanville says Hicks has fallen through jurisdictional rehabilitation cracks.

"I can't see that there's any avenue for the correctional services department to have any obligation or be involved," Mr Glanville told ABC Radio.

"There's the federal police who obtained the [control] order against him but I don't think that would include any sort of rehabilitation.

"So except for the support of his family I am not aware of any other avenues for him to be helped."

AAP

[accuracy]

Congratulations, David, a "free" man at long last!!- accuracy:D

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/12/29/yatala_wideweb__470x320,0.jpg
The main gate of Yatala prison in Adelaide.
Photo: David Mariuz


Jane Holroyd
December 29, 2007 - 9:04AM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/david-hicks-released/2007/12/29/1198778741695.html

David Hicks has been released from Yatala Prison.

The 32-year-old father of two walked from Adelaide's Yatala Prison at 8.17 (CDT) and was escorted to a waiting car, bypassing the waiting media pack that had been keeping a round-the-clock vigil.

Hicks was driven out of the maximum security jail in the back seat of a police sedan which drove slowly past waiting media.

A statement was read to the media pack by his lawyer David McCleod, in which Hicks thanked his family, friends, his lawyers, several politicians and the Australian public "for getting me home".

About 40 photographers and reporters have been waiting in a visitor's car park at Yatala Labour Prison, about 20 minutes drive north of Adelaide's CBD.

Media lenses, located about 70 metres from the gate, only got a brief glimpse of the man the nation has been reading about for the past six years.

Shortly after 8am, David Hicks' father Terry Hicks arrived at Yatala and was escorted into the high security prison in Adelaide's north by police this morning to meet with his son.

Once released, Hicks will have to report to police within 24 hours.

with AAP

[accuracy]

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/246/r213883826671mu5.jpg

Convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks (centre, in green shirt), leaves Yatala Prison in Adelaide upon his release on December 29, 2007.


Posted 1 hour 12 minutes ago
Updated 25 minutes ago

Confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks has been released from Adelaide's Yatala Prison.

Mr Hicks did not stop to speak to reporters, instead he was driven from the facility. His lawyer David McLeod read a statement on his behalf.

Source:
http://abc.com.au/news/

[accuracy]

By Steve Larkin
December 29, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22982302-2,00.html

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7706/0581988800bb0.jpg
Freedom ... terrorism supporter David Hicks leaving Adelaide's Yatala Prison this morning / News Ltd

TERRORISM supporter David Hicks has been freed from an Adelaide prison.

The 32-year-old walked out of the Yatala prison in Adelaide's north at 8.17am (CDT).

Hicks has been in custody since being captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan, in December 2001.

The father of two has completed a jail sentence, after pleading guilty before a US military commission in March this year to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

Hicks was driven out of the maximum security jail in the back seat of a police sedan which drove slowly past waiting media.

Hicks, with closely cropped hair, was to be driven to a secret location in Adelaide where he will start his life out of custody.

Hicks glanced at waiting media as he was driven from the jail.

Statement

His lawyer, David McLeod, later read a statement of Hicks' behalf.

In the statement, Hicks did not apologise for his terrorist-related conduct.

"I had hoped to be able to speak to the media but I am just not strong enough at the moment, it's as simple as that," Hicks said through his lawyer.

"I am sorry for that.

"As part of my conditions of release from Guantanamo Bay, I agreed not to speak to the media on a range of issues before March 30, 2008.

"It's my intention to honour this agreement as I don't want to do anything that might result in my return there.

"So for now, I will limit what I have to say - I will say more at a later time."

Hicks said he recognised "the huge debt of gratitude that I owe the Australian public for getting me home".

"I will not forget or let you down," he said.

'Thanks'

He also thanked his lawyers, various politicians and organisations that had lobbied for his fair treatment.

"Right now I am looking forward to some quiet time with my wonderful Dad, my family and friends," Hicks said.

"I ask that you will respect my privacy as I will need time to readjust to society and obtain medical care for the consequences of five and a half years at Guantanamo Bay.

"I have been told that my readjustment will be a slow process and should involve a gentle transition away from the media spotlight."

Hicks, a father of two, was driven from jail to a secret location in Adelaide.

His father, Terry Hicks, said his son was "on a high".

"It's now up to him," Mr Hicks told reporters.

"He now has got to get on with his life.

"He's on a high, he seems alright but I suppose in the quiet times everything will come back."

Copyright 2007 News Limited.

[accuracy]

December 29, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22984070-1702,00.html?from=mostpop

THIS is the full text of David Hicks's statement upon his release from Adelaide's Yatala jail today. The statement was read to media by his lawyer, David McLeod.


"Thank you for coming out on a Saturday and during the holiday period.

"I know you all hoped I might appear and answer some questions.

"I had hoped to be able to speak to the media but I am just not strong enough at the moment - it's as simple as that.

"I am sorry for that.

"As part of my conditions of release from Guantanamo Bay, I agreed not to speak to the media on a range of issues before March 30, 2008.

"It's my intention to honour this agreement as I don't want to do anything that might result in my return there.

"So for now, I will limit what I have to say - I will say more at a later time.

"I would ask the media and the public understand and respect this.

"I do however want to take this opportunity to say some overdue thank yous.

"First and foremost, I would like to recognise the huge debt of gratitude that I owe the Australian public for getting me home. I will not forget, or let you down.

"Next, I would like to thank my family and friends who have been so supportive of me. Words cannot adequately express the level of my feelings for them. I love them very much.

"Also my team of lawyers: Major Dan Mori, Josh Dratel, Michael Griffin, Steve Kenny and David McLeod, as well as their legal teams in Adelaide, Sydney, Washington and London. Much of their work was carried out pro-bono and they know I owe my freedom to their efforts.

"I also thank the legal profession within Australia, including the Law Council of Australia and the state Law Societies, and those abroad, who strove to uphold the ideal of a free trial for an Australian citizen.

"Many thanks go to the Fair Go For David campaigners and organisations such as Amnesty International, GetUp, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dick Smith, church groups including the Catholic Church, and various anti-torture and human rights groups.

"The Red Cross played an important role by trying to improve conditions and the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their efforts.

"There are certain politicians I would also like to particularly mention and thank: Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, Danna Vale, Sandra Kanck, Senator Bob Brown, Senator Kerry Nettle, Mark Parnell, Senator Linda Kirk, Nicola Roxon, Bob Debus, Rob Hull, Frances Bedford, Kris Hanna and many others who preferred to work behind the scenes.

"A huge thank you also to the members of the media who wrote about and increased public awareness of my detention and treatment over the years. Without you, the court of public opinion would not have been as informed or influential.

"There are many other groups, both large and small, and individuals involved in the campaign for my return to Australia, and to them I offer them my heartfelt thanks.

"This list is in no particular order and to anyone that I haven't mentioned, I am very sorry. I hope to thank all of you personally at a later date.

"Right now I am looking forward to some quiet time with my wonderful Dad, my family and friends.

"I ask that you respect my privacy as I will need time to readjust to society and to obtain medical care for the consequences of five and a half years at Guantanamo Bay.

"I have been told that my readjustment will be a slow process and should involve a gentle transition away from the media spotlight.

"Thank you for respecting my privacy and allowing me some breathing space to get on with my life."

Copyright 2007 News Limited.

[lizzy]

the reason he's getting the "no media communication for a year deal" is because he'll be dead and buried long before the year is up.......you know they're gonna inject him with some sort of fast killing disease..........you actually think they're gonna let him speak out, common, Nazi germany has migrated west, hear me?

Your probablly right.

[accuracy]

Your probablly right.

Time will tell. (I hope you're wrong.)

[accuracy]

DAVID Hicks is preparing for life as a university student.

By Kim Wheatley

January 22, 2008 12:30am
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23087271-911,00.html


His father, Terry, and lawyer, David McLeod, yesterday confirmed the confessed terrorism supporter was applying for entrance as a mature-aged student to one of Adelaide's three universities.

"At the moment he's focusing on the university entrance," Mr Hicks said.

"He wants to do ecology, geology or zoology - something down those lines."

Hicks, 32, has been living in a safe house since his release from Yatala Labour Prison on December 29.

He has been re-united with his children, Bonnie and Terry, and gone on outings to the beach, movies and shops.

Hicks still suffers anxiety attacks in confined spaces after five years in the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison, but his father said his son deliberately chose to raise his public profile.

"His idea is the more he can be out in the public the better off he's going to be, so people will get use to the idea that he's out there and he's just a normal person like everybody else," Mr Hicks said.

Copyright 2008 News Limited.

[accuracy]

David Hicks courts highest bidders for his story

By Jamie Walker and Andrew McGarry
February 01, 2008 01:00am


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23140594-2,00.html

DAVID Hicks is fielding lucrative offers for his story as his key advisers harden their resolve to defy Australian law and sell the white-hot interview rights.

The race to sign up the convicted terrorism supporter involves television networks in Australia, in the US and as far afield as Italy, as well as some of the world's biggest publishing houses.

Hicks's Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod, said yesterday that 30 approaches had been made by "every TV network ... publishers and otherwise", though not all of them involved cash.

Television, book and magazine rights could reap 32-year-old Hicks up to $1 million, media analysts say, making it the biggest payday since the Packer organisation outlaid $2.6 million to secure Beaconsfield mine collapse survivors Todd Russell and Brant Webb for the Nine Network and the ACP magazines.

Red faces

Hicks's father, Terry, told The Australian his personal position was that his son should be paid if and when he decided to tell his story. If Hicks were prosecuted, "there will be some very red faces - and not on our side," he said.

Ideally, most of the money would be donated to charity, Mr Hicks said. But it was reasonable that his son keep some of the proceeds.

"I think that is probably the way to go ... he should keep some aside.

"He's been kept in prison for six years under a regime that's been deemed illegal by the (US) Supreme Court," Mr Hicks said, referring to the judicial intervention that forced the Americans to recast the controversial military commission system under which Hicks was eventually sentenced.

Any decision by Hicks to accept payment for his story - even on behalf of a third party such as a charity - risks triggering federal and state proceeds-of-crime laws that were upgraded last year with him specifically in mind.

Such a move could also undermine public support that was instrumental to the Howard government taking up the case and pressuring the Americans to end Hicks's open-ended confinement in the controversial terrorist jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Prominent Melbourne media lawyer Nicholas Pullen said proceeds-of-crime laws would not apply to bidders for Hicks's story, so media and publishing groups were free to offer him what they liked. "There is nothing illegal in (a media organisation) going to David Hicks and saying, 'We will give you a million dollars for your story'," he said.

Deal imminent

Mr McLeod is believed to have advised bidders that a decision on who would clinch the deal for the first interview would be made about a month after Hicks's release from jail, making it imminent.

The lawyer would say yesterday only that Hicks's priority was a February 18 court appearance, where he is expected to apply for relaxation of the Australian Federal Police control order requiring him to report to police three times a week and observe a nightly curfew.

Hicks was freed from South Australia's Yatala maximum-security prison on December 29, but immediately stated he would not speak out before the end of March.

This was to comply with a US gag order, imposed as a condition of the plea bargain that enabled him to serve out the balance of his prison sentence in Australia.

Mr McLeod would not identify any of the 30 parties who have made approaches to secure exclusive rights to interview Hicks.

Ray Martin

But The Australian can reveal that the US ABC network and American 60 Minutes are among those bidding, along with an Italian television network. ABC interviewer Andrew Denton is competing with the Australian Story program to entice Hicks to break his silence on the national broadcaster, although ABC rules ban him being paid.

Predictably, the Nine Network has elbowed itself to the head of the queue, with veteran presenter Ray Martin leading its charm offensive.

"Ray speaks to us quite a bit, actually," Mr Hicks said. "I find him no problem, easy to talk to and that.

"And I suspect David would find the same."

A Nine spokeswoman said Martin was "non-contactable" yesterday. Nine's director of news and current affairs, John Westacott, did not return calls.

His counterpart at the Seven Network, Peter Meakin, insisted he would not offer Hicks money.

"I think people would watch, but I don't think they would appreciate the fact that he was paid," Mr Meakin said.

The country's principal newspaper owners, Fairfax Media and News Limited, publisher of NEWS.com.au, also ruled out paying Hicks. But the Ten Network was equivocal, with a network spokeswoman saying the issue was "hypothetical".

HarperCollins

HarperCollins publishing director Shona Martyn said the company would consider making an indirect payment to Hicks.

"If there was a situation where David Hicks was giving all his payment to, say, Amnesty International, and we had legal advice that this was an ethical approach, we could be interested," Ms Martyn said.

Melbourne University Press chief executive Louise Adler, already on the record as saying she was one of several publishers keen for the book rights, said there was nothing to stop anyone bidding.

A spokesman for federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland warned any move by Hicks to sell his story could result in civil action under the literary proceeds provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The federal legislation was employed last year by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to freeze book and magazine proceeds paid to the family of convicted drugs smuggler Schapelle Corby.

Media agent Sean Anderson, who hatched the deal between Nine and the Beaconsfield miners, said he wanted nothing to do with Hicks's story.

Celebrity agent Max Markson agreed. Although he has just taken on Australia's most notorious party-thrower, Melbourne teenager Corey Worthington, Mr Markson said he was not interested in Hicks.


Share this article

[accuracy]

Hicks wants to profit from Guantanamo story

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23457855-2,00.html

March 31, 2008

Article from: Herald Sun

By Nick Henderson

* Hicks' story predicted to be worth up to $1 million
* 'I should be able to profit from telling my story'
* Dick Smith advises Hicks to tell story for free

FORMER Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks has told supporters he should be able to profit from telling his story because he never committed a crime.

Hicks - a convicted terrorism supporter - was allowed to talk publicly about his experiences for the first time after a US-imposed gag order expired yesterday, but he has remained tight-lipped.

Adventurer and businessman Dick Smith revealed Hicks wants to profit from his story - predicted by media analysts to be worth up to $1 million.

Hicks said he agreed to a plea bargain in a US military commission only to avoid being "locked up forever" after spending more than five years at Guantanamo Bay.

"He says he has never supported terrorism but the reason he agreed with the plea bargain is that if he didn't sign up he would be locked up forever," said Mr Smith, who has mentored Hicks since his prison release.

"He says to me that he has never ever supported terrorism and that it is quite unfair that he shouldn't even earn $5 an hour to write his book, and I said: 'Well, that is how it is'."

"My personal advice is earn nothing from it. Tell your story and remain poor," he said.

Hicks' father, Terry, said the gag order and proceeds-of-crime laws had frustrated his son since his release from Adelaide's Yatala prison.

"He is frustrated at these so-called laws brought out to stop him from doing things," he said.

"This is something he can't understand."

Dozens of expressions of interest have been provided to Hicks' lawyer, David McLeod, but they have not yet been considered.

"I was to receive - not call for - but to receive, expressions of interest and they have come from near and far," Mr McLeod said.

"If and when asked to produce them I would do so."

Media analyst Peter Cox said Hicks' story could be worth up to $1 million if it were sold overseas because of widespread international interest.

Magazines and television networks would not reveal whether they had offered to pay Hicks for his story.

[accuracy]

Please Sign the Petition!

Subject: BREAKING NEWS: David Hicks speaks

http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq103/Accuracy_01/hicks_masthead.jpg


Dear Tony,

"G'day I'm David Hicks. I'd like to thank all GetUp members who helped me get out of the hell that was Guantanamo Bay...."

David Hicks has chosen to break his silence by speaking directly to GetUp members - watch his video message to you here:

With Guantanamo Bay set to close, and the legality of its Military Commissions in doubt, David Hicks is speaking out of concern that the Australian authorities will impose a new control order that will prevent him from closing this chapter of his life.

Control orders are one of the many worrying features of Australia's draconian anti-terror laws that sacrifice many of our liberties without providing effective protection for the community in return.

We've decided to air this message because control orders are emblematic of the Bush-Howard era of national security - an era that, in the interests of upholding community safety and our democratic principles, needs to come to an end.

Over 20,000 Australians have already joined you in signing our petition calling for an independent watchdog and review of the laws, watch David Hicks' message by clicking below, and please forward this campaign to your friends to help make sure our anti-terror laws protect us and our rights:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/WereAfraidNot/441

Thanks,
The GetUp team

PS - David Hicks has chosen to break his silence, and he's chosen to do it directly to you.

Watch his video here.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/WereAfraidNot/441?dc=561,9535,1

[accuracy]

Hicks keen to clear name and be a boring person

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/12/22/hicks_wideweb__470x312,0.jpg
David Hicks ... keen to get on with his life.
Photo: Jarra McGrath, courtesy of GetUp

Malcolm Knox
December 22, 2008

A FREE man seven years after his arrest in Afghanistan, David Hicks has signalled his wish to clear his name and remove his terrorism conviction from his record.

Almost seven years to the day after he went into custody and one month before a new US president takes office and closes Guantanamo Bay, Mr Hicks regained his freedom yesterday with the expiry of the control order covering his actions.

Mr Hicks's pastor, the Reverend Graham Long of the Wayside Chapel in Sydney, said Mr Hicks knew about the promise by the US president-elect, Barack Obama, to shut the US military prison where he was held for 5½ years.

"He's asked whether the closure of Guantanamo Bay might mean that the instrument that convicted him will be disbanded, and whether this might raise questions about the legality of the process that held and convicted him. I'd say that if this leads to something happening in America that could [lead to a pardon], then David will be lining up for it."

Mr Hicks, 33, had been imprisoned as a suspected terrorist since 2001. His 12-month control order followed seven months in solitary confinement in Adelaide's Yatala prison and the years in US military custody. He was released to Australia last year after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism.

Mr Hicks went off "into the wide blue yonder" yesterday, Mr Long said. "He's feeling enormous relief at being able to lead a normal life. He has a friend who's very ill, and David hadn't been able to stay with him because he'd be sleeping in the wrong bed for the conditions imposed by his control order. Now the order's been lifted, he can do that and other similar things."

Mr Hicks is now "as free as you and me", said his Adelaide lawyer, David McLeod, "and I'm sure he will enjoy being able to breathe the air a bit deeper".

Mr Hicks plans to spend Christmas with his family in Adelaide. His father, Terry, said Mr Hicks would be "concentrating on his rehabilitation".

Mr McLeod said Mr Hicks had "complied to the letter with the control order regime, not spoken out or said or done anything that could be interpreted as divisive or inflammatory or controversial or justifying of his actions".

Mr Hicks had undertaken volunteer work at a nursery and environmental agencies, committing himself "to return to mainstream society as a constructive and productive member", Mr McLeod said.

Mr Long dined with Mr Hicks in Sydney last week, and observed the legacy of long imprisonment.

"When we go out to dinner, he's more comfortable in a booth than at an open table. He feels very conspicuous, even if he's not."

Mr Long said Mr Hicks had "been left with a very bad back due to the conditions [in Guantanamo Bay]. He does a lot of exercise to help it, but I suspect he'll be dealing with it for the rest of his life."

Mr Hicks wants nothing more than "to be a boring person", he said, "and I think he's got everything it takes to achieve that."

Mr Long said Mr Hicks's prime regret was having signed the guilty plea. "I think he did what any of us would have done, which was do what he had to do to get out of there."

Mr Hicks declined requests to be interviewed or photographed.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hicks-just-wants-to-be-boring/2008/12/21/1229794246599.html?sssdmh=dm16.352438

[accuracy]

Hicks $100,000+ book 'in pipeline'

January 04, 2009

DAVID Hicks can command a six-figure advance from book publishers when he writes his story.

The former Guantanamo Bay inmate's father, Terry Hicks, has told the Sunday Mail a book was in the pipeline.
His son's Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod, said he had also been inundated with expressions of interest.

Literary agents said publishers would be willing to pay six figures, saying public interest in Hicks had not waned since he was released a year ago.

The Mary Cunnane Agency, which represented Mark Latham when he wrote The Latham Diaries, said Hicks' story could be worth $300,000 and would sell well.

"His story is an important one that needs to be told," agency director and former Transworld/Random House publisher Mary Cunnane said.

Averill Chase, founder of The Authors' Agent, said Hicks should start writing soon.

"The book will have far more value if it's told from the horse's mouth, but in order to sell well it will have to contain new information," Mr Chase said.

But Terry Hicks said his son was still too mentally fragile to write.

Under Australia's Proceeds of Crime Act, Hicks cannot profit from any book sales, but there is nothing to stop his father from making money from his story.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24870575-5006301,00.html

[accuracy]

David Hicks marries in Sydney :)

August 3, 2009 .

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks has married his girlfriend, Aloysia Brooks, in Sydney.

His father, Terry Hicks, who attended the wedding, said he was glad to see his son getting on with his life.

"We are grateful that things are going along an even line and he can get on and hopefully be left alone," he told The Advertiser newspaper.

"They're going to enjoy themselves and get on with their lives, and that's what it's about."

Major Michael Mori, the former US military defence lawyer for Mr Hicks, was also spotted at the weekend wedding in the northern Sydney suburb of Terrey Hills, the newspaper said.

Mr Hicks, who pleaded guilty to a charge of supporting terrorism, was held at the US military detention centre in Cuba for more than five years after being captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.

In March 2007, under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to seven years' jail but ordered to serve only nine months with the rest of his sentence suspended.

He returned to Australia and was released from Adelaide's Yatala jail more 18 months ago.

Mr Hicks met Ms Brooks after he moved to Sydney last year.

AAP


http://images.smh.com.au/2009/08/03/660972/hickscrop-200x0.jpg