HICKS SEEKS U.K. CITIZENSHIP FOR FREEDOM

An Adelaide man is seeking to alter his citizenship in a bid for release from U..S imprisonment.

David Hicks was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, and has since been imprisoned at the U..S.'s Halliburton-constructed Guantanemo Bay installation.

Hicks is one of only five Guantanemo prisoners to be charged of the 500 currently incarcerated there.

Hick's U.S. lawyer Major Michael Mori says that Hick's application would be granted automatically because he has an English mother. This information only came to light when Hicks was discussing the recent Australia-England cricket matches. David's father, Adelaide resident Terry Hicks said that on being asked how he felt about Australia's recent match loss"David's answer was that he didn't feel that patriotic as far as the Australians and the English go because his mother was still a British national and still carried a UK passport. It threw Major Mori."

While Prime Minister John Howard has refused to comment on the matter, Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer said that ""If Mr Hicks and his lawyers want to try to circumvent justice by going to some other country and they think that will help them, that's a matter between him and that country,"

Mr Downer has revealed that he has been aware of Hick's intention since the start of the month. and told ABC Radio that the issue was raised in his meeting with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has accused the Government of trying to pre-empt Mr Hicks's application, saying that "Have they actually been making comments in the last month urging the US to speed up Mr Hicks' trial, all along thinking that they had to get this going before some embarrassing story like today's revelations came out?"

Federal Oppoition Leader Kim Beazley said that Hick's trial should occur in the U.S., but not by the military. He said that "In the case of the United States that's a civil jurisdiction, they've got very good courts, and that is where David Hicks should be tried."

"Our Government has abandoned him" Democrats' Attorney-Generals Spokesperson Senator Natasha Stott Despoja said. "Unlike other countries such as Spain, France and the United Kingdom, Australia has left its citizen to rot in Guantanomo Bay without adequate support or rights. It is a tragedy that the Government has allowed the situation to come to this an Australian realising the only chance he has of obtaining a fair hearing is to change citizenship>

Hick's Adelaide lawyer David McLeod said that "He's not abandoning his Aussie citizenship, Customs can't send away an Australian citizen- I don't think there's any way they can currently resist his return to Australia, because he's not guilty of any breach of Australian law."

The Pentagon has announced that Hicks will face trial on November 18,
possibly coinciding with the visit of three U.S. Cabinet Ministers to Adelaide.