Australian 'Taliban' Appears at US Tribunal ; WORLD

Mar 27, 02:01 AM

Current Headlines: By Kathy Marks

After more than five years at Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner from Australia, has become the first inmate to face the military war tribunal specially created for the US prison - and promptly demanded more lawyers to boost his defence on charges he gave material support for terrorism.

Mr Hicks was dressed in a khaki prison jumpsuit. He had shaved his beard but kept his hair at chest length - he uses it to shade his eyes from the lights that blaze all night in his cell at the American base in Cuba. Mr Hicks said he was satisfied with his defence team, but wanted more lawyers and paralegals "to get equality with the prosecution".

He was captured by the Northern Alliance in November 2001 while fighting with Taliban forces in Afghanistan and handed over to the US. Incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002, he was originally charged with aiding the enemy, attempted murder and conspiracy to attack civilians. That has since been reduced to just the one charge of providing material support for terrorism. Nonetheless he faces a maximum sentence of life in jail if convicted.

Earlier, Mr Hicks's lawyers had hinted that after five years in detention - much of it in solitary confinement, and accompanied, they say, by torture and abuse - he may accept a plea bargain that would enable him to return to Australia in exchange for time already served. The signs were however that he planned to fight to clear his name of all terrorism-related charges.

Those who know him consider him misguided rather than venal - a restless young Australian who converted to Islam and adopted a series of causes, including fighting with the Kosovo Liberation Army, before ending up in Afghanistan, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mr Hicks grew up in Adelaide's northern working-class suburbs, left school at 14, and went up to the Northern Territory to train as a "jackaroo", or ranch hand. He then worked on cattle stations, spending time in the isolated Gulf of Carpentaria, in far northern Australia. Mr Hicks led a nomadic existence in the outback, riding at rodeos, shooting kangaroos and boning chickens. He fished and prospected for gold. Then in the late 1990s he went to Kosovo, where he undertook military training and fought with Islamist forces. Back in Australia in 1999, he converted to Islam at a mosque in Adelaide. Then he was off again on his travels - to Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan. American authorities claim that he trained with al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan before the 11 September attacks.

Initially there was little sympathy for him at home. But as his incarceration continued, and the evidence against him seemed ever flimsier, public anger mounted. Belatedly catching that change in the public mood, the Australian government has recently started to press the US authorities to process him swiftly. Mr Hicks's American military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, helped to transform public perceptions. During a series of visits to Australia, he attacked the injustice of the military tribunal system, recently dismissing it as a "kanga-roo court". Mr Hicks's lengthy detention without trial has been denounced by Australian politicians and judges, as well as the head of the Federal Police. The chief military prosecutor of the defence forces called his treatment "abominable".

A recent poll found that 91 per cent of Australians believed that, regardless of his alleged crimes, he deserved to receive a fair trial - and was unlikely to do so under the tribunal system.

Mr Hicks's father, Terry, who arrived in Cuba last night with his daughter Stephanie, was due to see his son for the first time since his previous court appearance in August 2004. Warned that his son's mental state has deteriorated markedly, he said he was approaching the reunion with "trepidation".

Road to ruin

David Hicks was born on 7 August 1975 in Adelaide, Australia. As a teenager he experimented with drugs and was expelled from school at the age of 14. He tried a number of jobs including skinning kangaroos, fishing for sharks, and horse training in Japan. He lived with an Aboriginal woman, Jodie Sparrow, and the couple had two children.

In 1999, aged 23, he travelled to Albania where he joined the KLA to fight in the Kosovo war. Later that year he returned to Australia where he applied, unsuccessfully, to join the Australian army. He then converted to Islam.

In November 1999, he went to Pakistan to study Islam and ended up in a guerrilla training camp in Pakistani Kashmir. He allegedly attended al-Qa'ida training camps in Afghanistan and met Osama bin Laden on a number of occasions.

After the 11 September attacks he returned to Afghanistan where he was captured by Northern Alliance fighters and handed to American special forces.

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