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Hicks denied access to Australian lawyer
AM - Friday, 13 January , 2006 - Reporter: Krista Eleftheriou

TONY EASTLEY: As Australian terror suspect David Hicks begins his fifth year in detention at Guantanamo Bay, his Australian lawyer's latest attempt to travel to Cuba has been rejected.

David McLeod says the Government isn't providing enough legal aid funding to adequately represent Mr Hicks, and the latest refusal for legal aid is just another in a long list of basic rights that Mr Hicks has failed to receive since his capture in 2001.

Krista Eleftheriou reports.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: For four years David Hicks has spent 23 hours each day in a prison cell. In that time he's been permitted to see his father Terry Hicks once and speak to him on three other occasions - the last time on Christmas Eve.

TERRY HICKS: He was pretty down, but after speaking for 38 minutes his spirits were up.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: David Hicks has been charged under US law with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy, but he's yet to face the military commission.

The British High Court last month found he had a right to British citizenship.

His lawyers hoped it would force that government to call for his release from Guantanamo Bay, as it did for nine of its citizens once held at the prison.

But the British Government is appealing the court's decision.

Australian lawyer David McLeod says he's hopeful pressure from some Coalition members may bring about change in policy towards David Hicks within Australia.

DAVID MCLEOD: We remain hopeful that the Australian Government will follow the same course as the UK Government and say enough is enough.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: But it seems unlikely. Federal Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock wants David Hicks to be tried in the military commission.

PHILLIP RUDDOCK: At the moment it's not proceeding, because Mr Hicks, through his legal advisers, is seeking to delay it.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: The US Federal Court last year ruled the military commission was unconstitutional.

But the US Senate has passed legislation blocking Guantanamo Bay detainees from accessing US courts.

Both his Australian and US lawyers claim David Hicks won't receive a fair trial in the US military commission.

David McLeod:

DAVID MCLEOD: It allows in evidence obtained under torture, it allows in hearsay evidence, it allows for evidence to be put in without having to call the witness who made the statement.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: David McLeod has approached the Federal Government for legal aid funding to visit David Hicks. But that request has been rejected.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has defended his department's decision.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: We've provided more than $200,000 worth of financial assistance to Mr Hicks's defence team, and judgements are made by appropriate officers as to whether or not grants should be made.

KRISTA ELEFTHERIOU: Meanwhile David Hicks's American lawyer will travel to Guantanamo Bay shortly to plan his future legal options.

TONY EASTLEY: Krista Eleftheriou ending that report.

Click Here for more info on David Hicks and inmates at Guantanamo Bay

New Guantanamo prison not 'sign of permanency'
By MIRANDA LEITSINGER - Associated Press Writer - 01/12/06 GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Four years after the first detainees in the U.S. war on terrorism were brought to makeshift jails at Guantanamo, construction workers in hard hats are putting up a two-story complex modeled after a mainland maximum-security prison.

This one will have air conditioning, a health clinic, recreation yards — and arrows pointing toward Mecca, the direction Muslims face while praying.

Officials at ‘‘Gitmo,’’ as American soldiers and sailors call the base, say the prison will make life better for detainees. But critics fear it underscores that for many prisoners, detention is apt to be a very long road.

‘‘The U.S. government would like to turn Gitmo into a permanent prison camp with no legal recourse for detainees and to create a permanent legal black hole in which hundreds of individuals are held without ever being charged with crimes,’’ said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

When U.S. authorities flew the first 20 prisoners to Guantanamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2002, after the U.S.-led military campaign that ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, detainees were put into an improvised jail of open-air cells with walls of chain-link fence.

Contractors are erecting the new prison at the foot of hills covered with jumbo cactuses, alongside the base’s only other maximum-security facility, which opened in May 2004.

It is expected to be completed in June and will be able to house 200 prisoners, while reducing the number of soldiers needed as guards.

‘‘The new detention facilities are built because they’re just more efficient and they improve the quality of life for detainees,’’ said Army Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin, who insisted the prison is not a ‘‘sign of permanency.’’

But senior Bush administration officials have said the war on terror will likely last for many years. Some detainees might be held for the duration, said Maj. Jane Boomer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions, created to try suspected terrorists.

‘‘They’re not being detained for criminal prosecution,’’ Boomer said. ‘‘They’re being detained to be kept off the battlefield.’’

Only nine detainees have been charged since the detention center opened. Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor, said the military commission has completed several investigations but motions filed by defense attorneys have held up some trials.

A preliminary hearing began Wednesday on a conspiracy charge against a Yemeni man accused of being Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard in Afghanistan at the time of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States. Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul told the court he is boycotting the proceeding even if he is forced to attend.

Some defense attorneys and human rights observers insist the whole process is illegitimate.

‘‘The U.S. continues to try and assert that Guantanamo is a place that exists sort of beyond the law, that no rules apply,’’ said Jumana Musa, a legal observer for Amnesty International. ‘‘The whole operation itself, it really runs counter to the fundamental components of human rights law, the idea that nobody can be held arbitrarily and indefinitely.’’

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit group, has arranged for attorneys to work free in representing the approximately 500 detainees now at Guantanamo.

‘‘The rule of law has yet to be reinstated in the U.S. battle on terror,’’ said Barbara Olshansky, the center’s deputy legal director. ‘‘The problem started when the (Bush) administration rejected the Geneva Conventions, which are intended to apply to every armed conflict in the world.’’

Of the approximately 760 prisoners brought to Guantanamo since 2002, the military has released 180. It has also transferred 76 to the custody of other countries, such as Australia, Britain, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Dozens of prisoners have gone on hunger strikes — a sign, according to U.N. officials and rights groups, that some have lost hope.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights said up to 200 people went on hunger strike in July, demanding to be put on trial or released. The military said only 52 prisoners were involved in that strike.

As of Tuesday, 42 prisoners were staging hunger strikes, officials said.

Thirty-two of those were being force fed by tube. Hunger strikers have previously alleged that U.S. troops inserted tubes without using anesthesia or sedatives to minimize pain and that tubes were reused without proper sanitization.

Martin said the feeding is ‘‘involuntary’’ but insisted there is no abuse or torture at the prison.

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