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Susan Crawford, the retired judge in charge of determining which Guantanamo detainees should be tried by a U.S. military commision, has refused to refer the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani to prosecutors because of that assessment, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. "We tortured (Mohammed al-) Qahtani," Crawford told the Post. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. Military prosecutors have accused al-Qahtani of helping to plan the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and believe he may have sought to participate, possibly as the "20th hijacker." The United States had...

Guantanamo Bay suicide attempt Thursday 17 July 2003, 6:05 AM A detainee tried to kill himself again in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where US authorities are preparing for military tribunals to try terror suspects, officials said. The attempt was the 29th since the detention mission was started, said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson. Most attempts occurred this year, a sign that the indefinite detentions were beginning to take their toll on detainees, who have not been formally charged or allowed to see lawyers. "This was an individual who was receiving treatment for mental illness," Johnson said in a telephone interview from...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- The Pentagon announced today that it has formed a five-member military tribunal to try three terrorism suspects held at this U.S. naval base. The Pentagon's announcement came a day after the Supreme Court issued a ruling that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay should have access to U.S. civilian courts to appeal their detention -- a decision considered a major blow for President Bush's stance that the United States can jail suspects without judicial review. The trials -- of an Australian, a Sudanese and a Yemeni -- would be the first of any of the...

DAVID Hicks is to cash in on his notoriety with a book deal that could pay a six-figure advance. Terry Hicks, father of the former Guantanamo Bay inmate, said a book was in the pipeline. David Hicks's Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod, said he had been inundated with expressions of interest. Literary agents said publishers would pay six figures because public interest in Hicks had not waned since he was released a year ago. ..... Hicks cannot profit from any book sales, but his father can.

DAVID Hicks's family is already bickering over the spoils of his notoriety, delaying a longed-for reunion with his children. Backers of the newly freed terrorism supporter yesterday lashed out at his former wife, Jodie Sparrow, for trying to cash in with her own media deal covering Hicks's contact with histwo teenage children, Bonnie and Terry. Hicks had wanted his children to be among the first people he saw after his release from Adelaide's Yatala prison on Saturday. But his lawyer, David McLeod, told The Australian that Hicks had shied away for fear the emotional reunion would be filmed. "He was...

DAVID Hicks should not apologise for his actions because he has done nothing wrong, his father Terry said yesterday. Amid national controversy over David's apparent lack of remorse following his release from Yatala prison on Saturday, Mr Hicks backed the decision not to apologise. "What has he got to apologise for?" he said. "He has done nothing wrong; he was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Mr Hicks, who just days ago indicated his son would say sorry to the Australian public, said David wrote a number of drafts of the statement read out by his lawyer David...

A DEFIANT David Hicks was in hiding last night after refusing to apologise for working with Islamic terror groups responsible for killing Australians. Hicks, 32, looking robust and with shoulder-length hair, walked out of Adelaide's Yatala Prison yesterday morning after nearly six years behind bars. Almost a dozen police cars and motorbikes held back traffic and a no-fly zone grounded helicopters as Hicks made a quick getaway. A relative in a Victorian-registered car took him to the first of a series of secret safe houses. As he was taken away, federal police refused to say if they had authorised Hicks...

ADELAIDE, Australia - Confessed terror supporter David Hicks was released from an Australian prison Saturday after completing a U.S.-imposed sentence for aiding al-Qaida. Hicks became the first person convicted at a U.S. war crimes trial since World War II after he pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks has been released from Adelaide's Yatala Prison. Mr Hicks did not stop to speak to reporters, instead he was driven from the facility. His lawyer David McLeod read a statement on his behalf. In it 32-year-old Mr Hicks apologised for not appearing before the media himself, but said that he was not strong enough. He has also agreed not to talk to the media about some matters before the end of next March, as part of his conditions of release from Guantanamo Bay. "It is my intention to honour this agreement as I don't...

A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution. Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them. His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori,...

Excerpt - A jet transporting the Australian convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks has landed at the RAAF's Edinburgh base in Adelaide. The aircraft landed at a 9:45am ACST (10:15am AEST). It pulled up near the air base terminal building and two people, believed to be Customs officers, boarded the jet. South Australia's elite police group Star Force will transfer Hicks to Yatala Prison in a convoy of vehicles once he has been processed by Customs at the base in Adelaide's north. Hicks will then be put into a solitary confinement cell in Division G, the highest security prison ward in...

SUPPORTERS of David Hicks should remember he is an admitted terrorist supporter who fought against his countrymen, Treasurer Peter Costello says. Mr Costello's comments came as Hicks' lawyers said their client will attempt to live a normal existence on his return to Australia and release from jail. Hicks, who spent five years in a US military prison after he was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, pleaded guilty to a charge of giving material support to terrorism last week. Under a plea deal negotiated between Hicks' lawyers and the US military commission, he will be returned to Australia from Guantanamo...

DAVID Hicks, already facing the possibility of 20 years' jail on terrorism charges in the US, is the subject of a new investigation by the Indian Government over his attacks on their armed forces in Kashmir. The investigation has been triggered by disclosures in American prosecution files about the involvement of Hicks with a terrorist group that has killed thousands of people in the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir. The prosecution file states that the former kangaroo skinner and father of two who converted to Islam joined the terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan, travelled to the border with Indian Kashmir...

Do you believe David Hicks is guilty as charged?

Do you believe David Hicks is guilty as charged?

TERROR suspect David Hicks has pleaded guilty at a hearing at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

UPPER House MP Bernie Finn has launched an attack on accused Australian terror suspect David Hicks, saying people were trying to turn him into a national living treasure. "I must offer a word of caution to those seeking to elevate Hicks to national hero status," Mr Finn told State Parliament. "David Hicks was not in Afghanistan to judge the Kabul beach babe contest. "He was there fighting for one of the most oppressive regimes on earth, which is and was a supporter and promoter of terrorism both locally and internationally.

The U.S. military prepared new charges Friday against three of the best-known detainees at Guantanamo Bay — a key step toward resuming the military tribunals for terrorism suspects that were halted by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Authorities drafted new charges — including murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism — against Canadian Omar Khadr, Australian David Hicks and Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis, chief prosecutor in the Guantanamo war crimes trials. Under military rules, the charges are not considered formally filed against the detainees until they are approved by a U.S....

AUSTRALIAN terrorist suspect David Hicks definitely will not face the death penalty if found guilty by a US military commission, new US Ambassador Robert McCallum said today. But Mr McCallum said Hicks, who has been in US custody for four-and-a-half years, could expect a long wait until his hearing. Mr McCallum, who took up his Australian posting last week, said the US Congress would decide sometime after September how to proceed with the military commission process following a court ruling that the set-up was unlawful. "The rule of law, international established law, the law of war, allows the detention of...

THE Federal Government today rejected calls for David Hicks to be returned home after The United States' highest court found the military commissions set to try the Australian terror suspect were unlawful. Prime Minister John Howard urged US authorities to find another forum to try Hicks, saying he had no sympathy for the Adelaide-born man accused of training as a terrorist with al-Qaeda. Hicks' father, lawyers and politicians demanded Hicks be brought home after the US Supreme Court ruled overnight that the military commissions set up to try Guantanamo Bay detainees were unlawful. The Supreme Court justices voted five to...