Law Council calls for Hicks action

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AUSTRALIA'S peak legal body has called on the Blair government to act swiftly to process terrorist suspect David Hicks' British citizenship. The British Court of Appeal last month ruled the 31-year-old from Adelaide was entitled to British citizenship because his mother is from the United Kingdom. Hicks, who has been held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for more than four years, hopes Britain will lobby for his release from the US detention camp, as it did for nine UK detainees.

Australian Law Council president John North today said he had met UK Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith in London to ask him to hasten Hicks' return to Australia. "Given Mr Hicks has spent four-and-a-half years in detention, it's only fair that authorities move as quickly as possible to process his case," Mr North said. If released, Hicks hopes to return to his family in Australia.

"We know from talking to Mr Hicks' lawyers that, more than anything else, he wants to be with his family once he is released," Mr North said. "Then, we hope, all it would take is for Britain to put Mr Hicks on a plane to Australia after his release." Mr Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, allegedly fighting with the ousted Taliban regime, and is now awaiting trial by a US military commission.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19415131-1702,00.html