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HICKS SEEKS U.K. CITIZENSHIP FOR FREEDOM

An Adelaide man is seeking to change his nationality in a bid for release from U..S imprisonment.

David Hicks was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, and has since been imprisoned at the U..S.'s Halliburton-constructed Guantanemo Bay installation.

Hicks is one of only five Guantanemo prisoners to be charged of the 500 currently incarcerated there.

Hick's U.S. lawyer Major Michael Mori says that Hick's application would be granted automatically because he has an English mother. This information only came to light when Hicks was discussing the recent Australia-England cricket matches. David's father, Adelaide resident Terry Hicks said that on being asked how he felt about Australia's recent match loss"David's answer was that he didn't feel that patriotic as far as the Australians and the English go because his mother was still a British national and still carried a UK passport. It threw Major Mori."

While Prime Minister John Howard has refused to comment on the matter, Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer said that ""If Mr Hicks and his lawyers want to try to circumvent justice by going to some other country and they think that will help them, that's a matter between him and that country,"

Mr Downer has revealed that he has been aware of Hick's intention since the start of the month. and told ABC Radio that the issue was raised in his meeting with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has accused the Government of trying to pre-empt Mr Hicks's application, saying that "Have they actually been making comments in the last month urging the US to speed up Mr Hicks' trial, all along thinking that they had to get this going before some embarrassing story like today's revelations came out?"

Federal Oppoition Leader Kim Beazley said that Hick's trial should occur in the U.S., but not by the military. He said that "In the case of the United States that's a civil jurisdiction, they've got very good courts, and that is where David Hicks should be tried."

"Our Government has abandoned him" Democrats' Attorney-Generals Spokesperson Senator Natasha Stott Despoja said. "Unlike other countries such as Spain, France and the United Kingdom, Australia has left its citizen to rot in Guantanomo Bay without adequate support or rights. It is a tragedy that the Government has allowed the situation to come to this- an Australian realising the only chance he has of obtaining a fair hearing is to change citizenship"

Hick's Adelaide lawyer David McLeod  said  that "He's not abandoning his Aussie citizenship,  Customs can't send away an Australian citizen- I don't think there's any way they can currently resist his return to Australia, because he's not guilty of any breach of Australian law."  

Hicks Hearing Date Set

According to the ABC Hicks will face court on November 18, roughly when half of the U.S. Cabinet wil be in Adelaide. 

Won't that be ironic- the leaders of another country in our city while one of our locals faces trial in their homeland for charges he can't be tried for here? 

poetic justice .....

The Editor,

Sydney Morning Herald.                                                     September 27, 2005.  

 

Poor old Alexander Downer still doesn’t get it (‘Downer: Hicks should face justice’, Herald, September 27).

 

Had David Hicks been dealt with promptly under the US criminal justice system or via a military court martial, the interests of justice would have been served & his fate determined long ago.

 

It will be poetic justice indeed if Hicks is 'guilty' of some offence, but ultimately manages to avoid prosecution because the US & Australian governments sought to replace the rule of law with the arbitrary dictates of executive fiat.

 

 

 

US midget stops Colossus Hicks...

From the ABC

US blocking Hicks UK citizenship, lawyer says

The US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks says the United States Government is standing in the way of his client being granted British citizenship.

Major Michael Mori has spoken at Melbourne University Law School, criticising the legal process facing the South Australian.

He says the US will not subject its own citizens to the military commissions.

Maj Mori says he has also had word from British officials that they have not been given access to Hicks.

"They've been trying to go down to Guantanamo to administer the oath and finalise his British citizenship, and yet the US Department of Defence has not permitted them to go down, in the correspondence I saw, there were no reasons provided," he said.