TerroristHicks:Detainee going through 'a difficult time' Booh Booh Hoooo

Detainee going through 'a difficult time'
March 07, 2005
From: AAP
Detainee going through 'a difficult time'
March 07, 2005
From: AAP
Daily Telegraph
THE departure of the only other Australian and virtually all other Western prisoners from the US Army's Guantanamo Bay prison had hit terror suspect David Hicks hard, his US lawyer said today.
Mr Hicks, originally from Adelaide, was going through a difficult time waiting for his trial to begin, Major Michael Mori said.
"You can imagine ... the remaining British citizens were released and the other Australian (Mamdouh Habib) was released, it was a difficult time for David," he said on Channel 9.
"It's difficult for David to comprehend, (for) anybody stuck in Guantanamo after three years, and the guy to your right goes home and the guy on the left goes home, and they're back in the pub drinking beer and you're still sitting there in a cell in Guantanamo Bay.
"It's difficult to come to grips with."
Mr Hicks, 29, has been in American custody since being captured in December 2001 near the town of Baghlan in Afghanistan.
He is accused of having links to terror group al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime and is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
Major Mori said the Australian media had been tough on Mr Hicks.
"I think David, unfortunately, (found) the media was pretty tough on him in the first year," he said.
"He's going to have to come home and he's going to have to prove himself to people, but I think he's up to the challenge, showing he's just a good old Aussie."
Major Mori said French detainees would be released soon, leaving Mr Hicks the only Western person left at the prison.
He said he had good access to his client at Guantanamo.
"I'm allowed to see David pretty much any time I'm down there in Guantanamo.
"We just meet in a little room. He's chained to the floor and we spend a lot of hours together sitting there in that one little room, talking, trying to keep him focused on his life and what he needs to survive at Guantanamo.
"David is focusing on getting back to his family."
Mr Hicks was scheduled to be tried by a special US military commission this month, but that was put on hold while another Guantanamo inmate, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, challenged the US government in the courts.
The US District Court ruled last November that Mr Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni accused of being al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's personal driver, was entitled to a hearing to determine whether he was a prisoner of war.