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Mori sacked Hicks's lawyer

DAVID Hicks's US military lawyer Major Michael Mori sacked Hicks's Australian lawyer last year because he believed it would help curry favour with senior Howard government officials.

Well-placed legal sources say the decision to replace lawyer Stephen Kenny with air force reservist David McLeod was based on Major Mori's belief that the move would be welcomed in Canberra and could therefore help to secure Hicks's release.

Major Mori has said publicly that Hicks made the decision to replace Mr Kenny early last year, but insiders say the real decision was made by Major Mori, who believed Mr Kenny's background was too radical.

The outspoken Mr Kenny had a history of Aboriginal activism and human rights causes and clashed frequently with the Howard Government.

"During a meeting with officials from the Attorney-General's Department in Canberra, Mori asked if we got rid of Kenny, would the Australian Government renegotiate (Hicks)," one legal source told The Weekend Australian.

"The official replied that it may be possible but Mori took that as a yes."

Major Mori wanted to give the Hicks team a more conservative public face so it could gain more traction with the Howard Government. So he appointed Group Captain McLeod, a Liberal Party member in the Australian Air Force legal reserves who served in Iraq. But the plan didn't work - Captain McLeod has proved to be just as outspoken as Mr Kenny and has had repeated clashes with the Government.

Sources also reveal that Captain McLeod and Major Mori also do not get on, with Captain McLeod having threatened to resign several times because of what he sees as Major Mori's maverick approach to the case.

Despite their personal differences, the two lawyers have proved a highly effective team.

They have engineered a behind-the-scenes campaign to push Hicks from the radical fringe of public debate into the mainstream. This campaign, revealed in The Weekend Australian Magazine today, has played a key role in fuelling public sympathy for Hicks, transforming his case into a major electoral liability for the Government.

Australian Terrorist Suspect Hicks to Face Court on March 26
By Hans van Leeuwen

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks, who has been held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for five years, will appear before a military tribunal on March 26, the Australian government said today.

``We have been advised that the new date is March 26,'' Michael Pelly, a spokesman for the nation's chief lawmaker, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, said by telephone. That's changed from an earlier date of March 20 cited by Prime Minister John Howard two days ago.

Hicks, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, was charged on March 1 for providing support to terrorism and is the first of the 400-plus inmates of Guantanamo Bay to be charged under a new law authorizing military commission trials for enemy combatants.

His case has been a liability for Howard, an ally in President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, as lawyers and human rights activists have complained about delays in bringing Hicks to trial.

Hicks's defense lawyers had requested the latest six-day delay, Pelly said today. By contrast, Agence France-Presse today reported that the new trial date was March 28 and it was the prosecutors who sought the delay. AFP's report cited a U.S. Defense official, whom it did not name.

Hicks in 2004 pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit attacks on civilians and aiding the enemy. The charges were dropped last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the use of military commissions to try him and other Guantanamo Bay inmates.

Sixty percent of Australian's said their government's stance on Hicks would affect how they vote in an election due this year, according to a Newspoll survey of 1,152 people published on Jan. 23.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hans van Leeuwen in Sydney at [email protected] .

Govt to pay for Terry Hicks' Cuba travel
The federal government may pay for the father of Australian terror suspect David Hicks to visit his son in Guantanamo Bay before his first court appearance.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said the government could assist Terry Hicks' travel to the US military base in Cuba for his son's arraignment hearing expected on March 20.

Mr Hicks last saw his son in August 2004.

"There is no reason why a parent shouldn't be there for an event like that in relation to his or her child," Mr Downer told reporters in Adelaide.

"Given this case has taken so long we could perhaps help a bit with Terry Hicks' presence there at the hearing."

Mr Downer said he was pleased a date had been set for what would be the first step of a US military trail against the former Adelaide man.

Hicks, a 31-year-old Muslim convert, has been held in Guantanamo Bay without trial since his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

He will face the charge of providing material for terrorism.

Brought to you by AAP

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