Australian Guantanamo inmate loses bid for release

Australian Guantanamo inmate loses bid for release
Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:26 AM BST

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks has lost his latest bid for freedom after the British government said on Tuesday it would not seek his release. Hicks' supporters said the decision was further cruel punishment.

Hicks, an Australian convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, last December won the right to claim British citizenship in a move his lawyers had hoped would prompt Britain to seek his release from U.S. custody.

The British government has secured the release of nine other British citizens from Guantanamo Bay, and does not support the U.S. military trials for detainees. But the Foreign Office said it would not intervene in the Hicks case.

"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has decided not to make representations to the United States on behalf of David Hicks," a Foreign Office spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday. He said the decision was consistent with Britain's policy on dual nationals in third countries.

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David Hicks' dad slams UK over refusal
June 27, 2006 - 7:14AM

The father of terrorist suspect David Hicks says Britain has used a flimsy technicality to refuse to lobby for his son's release from Guantanamo Bay.

Terry Hicks says Britain is hiding behind the fact that when his son was captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in 2001, he was solely an Australian citizen.

David Hicks, who has been held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for four-and-a-half years, has since been granted British citizenship because his mother is British.

Britain has successfully lobbied the US to release its citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay by arguing the US military commissions set up to try the terrorist suspects are illegal and don't meet international standards of law.

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PM 'must seek civil trial for Hicks'

(something just doesn't add up here. I'd sure like to know what's missing)

PRIME Minister John Howard must urge the US to grant Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks a civil trial, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today.

The federal Labor leader made the call today as news emerged that the British Government would not press for Hicks's release from the US military-run Guantanamo Bay detention centre, in Cuba, despite his success in claiming dual citizenship.

"I think the British Government would probably take the view that irrespective of any claims on nationally, David Hicks is an Australian responsibility," Mr Beazley said in Melbourne.

"It is the Australian Government's responsibility to say what ought to happen to David Hicks now.

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