Australian held at Guantanamo is charged

The only Australian charged by the US military at Guantanamo Bay would not receive a fair trial, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer and father said today.

According to a US Defence Department announcement yesterday, David Hicks is being charged at the US naval base at Cuba with “providing material support for terrorism.”

Mr Hicks was detained in Afghanistan, where he allegedly fought alongside the ruling Taliban against US-led forces.

His lawyer, Marine Corps Major Michael Mori, who is in Australia, said he would speak to officials in the Attorney General’s Department in Canberra in a bid to convince them that the 31-year-old Muslim convert should be brought home rather than face an unfair charge.

“It’s disgusting that he has spent five years in Guantanamo for made-up charges,” Mori told reporters in Melbourne, adding that Australia was “pushing for an unfair trial.”

Hicks’ father, Terry Hicks, who lives in the South Australia state capital Adelaide, said the military commission would “not be a fair process” because hearsay evidence and statements made under coercion would be accepted.

“The thing that annoys me is when you have people commit murders; they’re out in about eight years and David could have the process of life imprisonment,” Terry Hicks said. “It’s not a good set up. I have no faith in it.”