Australian Guantanamo inmate loses bid for release

CANBERRA, June 27: Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks has lost his latest bid for freedom after the British government today said 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 today. He said the decision was consistent with Britain's policy on dual nationals in third countries.

The Australian government said the decision was a matter for Britain. Hicks' father said he would now look to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is due to decide this week on whether the military trials can go ahead.

''It is disappointing that the British decided not to follow up David's release. I suppose our next step now is to wait upon the Supreme Court action and just hope something will happen there,'' Terry Hicks told Australian radio.

The minor party Australian Democrats said Britain's decision dashed any hope of justice for Hicks, who is being held as an enemy combatant.

''The British Foreign Office's refusal to lobby for the release of Adelaide-born David Hicks is further unnecessary cruel and unusual punishment,'' Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja said in a statement.

David McLeod, Hicks' Australian lawyer, said the legal team would now consider its next move, which could involve representations to British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, or a court appeal against Beckett's decision.

''It is just another hurdle that's been put in the way,'' McLeod told Reuters.

Prime Minister John Howard, who supports the military trials, said Australia had put no pressure on Britain over Hicks.

''It is self-evident that David Hicks has until quite recently regarded himself as Australian. We have provided him with consular assistance. We will go on doing that,'' Howard told Sky television from Indonesia.

However, Howard said he hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would soon hand down a decision on the military commission hearings so the Hicks case could proceed.

Earlier this month, Hicks's military lawyer, Michael Mori, said his client had been held in Guantanamo Bay's Camp Five. Mori said Hicks had been in solitary confinement for up to 22 hours a day for the past three months and was suffering from depression.

Hicks has pleaded not guilty to charges of aiding the enemy, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit war crimes.

Reuters