Al-Qaeda soldier David Hicks, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be
convicted on terrorism offences, is set to leave an Australian jail
Saturday six years after being captured by US forces while fighting
with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Hicks, 32, pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism at his US military commission hearing in March.
The former rodeo rider, who will have to report to police three
times a week and comply with a midnight-to-dawn curfew, was transferred
from Guantanamo to Adelaide's Yatala prison in May to serve the
remainder of his 9-month sentence.
A condition of his transfer to Australia was that the former
kangaroo-skinner not give any press interviews until March, but his
family have looked at book and magazine deals that would get round laws
that prevent criminals profiting from their crimes.
"Publishers seem to think it can be got around if David ever wants
to do it," his father, Terry told reporters. "If anything is going to
be written, I would prefer to do a joint thing with David because it
all ties into one."
Hicks, who is separated from his wife and two teenage children, is
not certain to speak to the media - or even be photographed when he
leaves Yatala prison.
Terry Hicks says years in solitary confinement and tough
questioning techniques at Guantanamo have left his son in a fragile
mental state.
"One of the things he's worried about is how he's going to cope
with it," he said. "That's why at this point he'd prefer not to have to
front up to the media."
Hicks, who in 1998 joined the Kosovo Liberation Army to fight
alongside Albanian Muslims against the Serbs in the Balkans, is
expected to make a statement on his release apologizing to Australians
for joining terrorist organizations.
He trained with Muslim terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan
in 2000 and met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He returned to
Afghanistan to report for duty with the Taliban even after watching the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on television in Pakistan.
In letters home he praised the Taliban and bin Laden and railed against Jews and the US.
Terry Hicks, who has always tried to present his son as a silly boy
rather than a Muslim fanatic, said rehabilitation was next on the
agenda for a man who became known as Australia's Taliban.
"I think over the next few weeks he will start to come back to
earth and get on which his life and what he wants to do," Terry Hicks
said.
