Australian lawmakers ask US for Hicks release

CANBERRA, Feb 2 (Reuters) Australian lawmakers have written to their U.S. counterparts calling for Australia's only Guantanamo Bay inmate to be sent home for trial, saying new rules set up to try detainees ''stomped on basic American values''.

Almost 100 lawmakers, all from centre-left opposition and minor parties apart from a sole government senator, wrote to the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, TOday, calling for David Hicks to face trial in Australia.

''We are not satisfied that the recently announced rules for Guantanamo Bay detainee trials will afford David Hicks, or other detainees, a fair hearing, consistent with international legal standards and Australian law,'' the letter said.

Hicks, 31, was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of fighting for al Qaeda. He is among around 395 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters being held in the US enclave, and is tipped to be one of the first to face trial.

Charges against Hicks of conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy were dropped when the U.S. Supreme Court last June rejected the tribunal system set up by President George W Bush to try foreign terrorism suspects.

Hicks, a convert to Islam, had previously pleaded not guilty.

Last month the Pentagon issued new rules authorising tribunals to try ''unlawful enemy combatants'' detained at Guantanamo using intercepted, forced and hearsay testimony.

But the Australian lawmakers, who included maverick government senator Barnaby Joyce from the junior National Party, said the rules ran counter to Australian and American values.

''We are also concerned that the ongoing absence of justice in David Hicks' case is serving to undermine international efforts to combat terrorism,'' they wrote.

Article 110 of the Geneva Convention protecting prisoners of war entitled Hicks to immediate repatriation to Australia to face trial before a proper court, they said.

''We ask you and your colleagues to insist, perhaps by way of resolution in the Congress, that David Hicks be immediately repatriated to Australia,'' the letter said.

Australia's government has backed the commission process, but expressed frustration at the time taken to bring Hicks to trial, recently demanding charges be laid before the end of February.

Hicks's case is straining Canberra's support for the US-led ''war on terror''. Conservative Prime Minister John Howard faces re-election later this year with polls showing 62 per cent of Australians oppose the way the Iraq war has been handled.

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