Australian Guantanamo inmate loses bid for release
Tue Jun 27, 2006 6:26 AM BST
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks has lost his latest bid for freedom after the British government said on Tuesday 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 on Tuesday. He said the decision was consistent with Britain's policy on dual nationals in third countries.
(snip/...)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-27T052551Z_01_SYD202189_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-GUANTANAMO-AUSTRALIA.xml