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Hicks looks forward to freedom
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Andrew McGarry | December 26, 2007
David Hicks (ABC: ABC)
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THE father of David Hicks is working to ensure that the convicted terror supporter is able to settle back into family life without having to run a media gauntlet when he is released from prison on Saturday.
Speaking after a 30-minute visit at Adelaide's Yatala prison yesterday, Terry Hicks said his son was increasingly excited about being granted his freedom after six years but was anxious to avoid publicity.
"I think we've got to realise that in that time David has been in a small room for all that time, and Saturday, all of a sudden, he's going to walk out into that huge open expanse (and) into thearms of the media," Mr Hicks said.
"One of the things he's worried about is how he's going to cope with it. That's why at this point he'd prefer not to have to front up to the media."
David Hicks was captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in late 2001 and held at the US military's Guantanamo Bay detention centre for 5 1/2 years before being returned to Australia in May to serve out the balance of his sentence for providing material support to terrorists.
Last week a federal magistrate handed down an interim control order to take effect when Hicks is released into the community, listing a series of requirements, including a midnight-to-6am curfew, and reporting to police three times a week.
A condition of his transfer to Australia was that he not give any media interviews until March, but his father yesterday said his son might, at some point, face the press.
"Down the track we'll look at - once he's settled and got used to the open spaces - doing a press conference," he said.
For the moment, Hicks is focusing on freedom. "David was in high spirits this morning, looking forward to next weekend, he was just smiling, which is good," Mr Hicks said outside the prison. "He said he's got another lot of visits tomorrow, and all of a sudden it's Thursday, and then things are starting to happen. So he's looking forward to it.
"We did ask him what he was having for (Christmas) lunch but he just said he thought it would be a normal lunch, and maybe something special for tea. But I don't think he's worrying about those kinds of things, more the future and what's going to happen on his release."
Mr Hicks rejected reports suggesting his son was suffering from agoraphobia and was mentally unfit for release.
"What actually happened there was when David was removed from the system here to Holden Hill (police station to prepare him for release), he was surrounded by uniforms, he got a bit anxious and apprehensive," he said.
"Suddenly the media are saying he's got agoraphobia, he's going to be frightened of this and frightened of that.
"This was just something that was taken out of context."
There were no immediate plans for a family celebration.
"Parties are out, we've got other things to get David through and that's at the top of the agenda," Mr Hicks said.
"I think over the next few weeks he will start to come back to earth and get on with his life and what he wants to do."
David Hicks Case Information
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No perfect ending for Hicks
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Article from: AAP - STEVE LARKIN -
December 27, 2007 04:00pm
DAVID Hicks' dad used to call him Indiana Jones. But unlike the movie character, there's no perfect ending in store for the man who will taste freedom after six years when he's released from Adelaide's Yatala jail on Saturday.
But he won't step on any middle ground in the eyes of Australians, who consider him either lucky or luckless; a devil or a naive daredevil.
Some say Hicks, a convicted terrorist who met Osama bin Laden and trained with his terrorist group al-Qaeda, is lucky to be getting out of custody.
Others say he's luckless, a man who committed no crime yet became an unwitting political pawn in the global war on terror.
Hicks has been called many things.
But how did he go from being described as "normal" with "ability to excel" by his high school teachers to being labelled "as dangerous as a person can be" by former Australian attorney-general Daryl Williams?
"We call him Indiana Jones, that's his nickname," Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, says.
"I've always said he should have been born a few centuries ago with a sword in his hand."
Hicks' formative years were spent in blue-collar suburbs in Adelaide's north, not far from the Yatala jail.
He was expelled from Smithfield Plains High School aged 14 in 1990.
School records contain no negative remarks, despite some former classmates saying he was a rebel who experimented with drugs and alcohol and dabbled in Satanism.
After the expulsion, Hicks travelled to the rugged Northern Territory cattle country, where he became a jackeroo at Borroloola, west of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
While there, Hicks also worked as a rodeo rider, barman and began studying the Koran.
"He was sort of a quiet fellow, he was into his religious study, he didn't have much to say to people," Borroloola historian Val Andrews says.
While in the township, Hicks met Jodie Sparrow, with whom he had two children - daughter Bonnie, and son Terry, now both teenagers.
After the couple separated, Hicks journeyed to Japan to become a horse trainer.
One day in 1998, he telephoned his parents to tell them he'd decided to join an organisation called the KLA.
"I thought it was an airline," Terry Hicks says.
It wasn't - it was the Kosovo Liberation Army, then fighting against the Serbs in the Balkans.
Hicks travelled via Adelaide to Kosovo, where he fought alongside ethnic Albanian Muslims in the KLA.
Returning to Adelaide in mid-1999, Hicks began studying at an Islamic mosque in north suburban Gillies Plains, where he converted fully to Islam.
"He had some interest in military things," says Wali Hanifi, the president of the Islamic Society of South Australia.
"He was looking for answers and had come to the conclusion that, after personal experience or research, Islam was the answer.
"He seemed to have quite a good head on his shoulders, he was an easygoing bloke and he was quite friendly.
"He was a polite, respectful person who had a serious demeanour about him and he just looked like he was looking for spiritual fulfillment."
Hicks travelled to Pakistan in late 1999 to further his Islamic studies.
Somehow, he ended up training with terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Toiba and al-Qaeda.
The US has alleged that Hicks - funded and transported by Lashkar-e-Toiba colleagues - travelled in January 2001 to Pakistan to attend al-Qaeda training camps.
In May that year, Hicks wrote a letter to his family, saying: "I have met Osama bin Laden 20 times now, lovely brother, everything for the cause of Islam.".
In other 2000 and 2001 letters to family, Hicks wrote about dying a martyr.
"There are many privileges in heaven," Hicks said in one letter to his mother.
"One reward I get in being martyred - I get to take 10 members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell. But first I also must be martyred.
"Islam will rule again but for now we must have patience... we are asked to sacrifice our lives for Allah's cause - why not?"
In one letter, he described himself as a "fit, young Muslim, ready to defend Islam" and in another wrote: "Jihad is still valid to this day".
On September 9, 2001, Hicks, according to US charges laid later, travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan to visit a friend.
"While at this friend's house, Hicks watched television footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and expressed his approval," US charge sheets alleged.
They alleged that Hicks, the next day, returned to Afghanistan and rejoined al-Qaeda.
Two months later, Hicks telephoned his father from near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
"He said something about going off to Kabul to defend it against the Northern Alliance," Terry Hicks says.
Weeks later, Hicks was caught by the Northern Alliance - the US said he was in a taxi, trying to flee to Pakistan.
The Northern Alliance sold Hicks to the Americans for $1,000 and he was, on January 11, 2002, transferred to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Three days later, then Australian attorney-general Daryl Williams remarked that Hicks was "as dangerous as a person can be in modern times".
Years passed with Hicks detained at Guantanamo Bay, until on March 27 this year, he pleaded guilty before a US military commission to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.
With his lawyers, he struck a plea bargain which resulted in a seven-year jail sentence, with all but nine months suspended.
The plea bargain included Hicks being returned to Australia to serve the remainder of his sentence at Yatala jail, a few kilometres from his family home.
But even after he is released on Saturday, Hicks, now 32, will be closely monitored. Last week he became the second Australian to be placed under a control order, the other being Melbourne man Jack Thomas.
Hicks' control order conditions include a midnight to 6am curfew, reporting to a police station three times a week and not using phones or internet connections not approved by the Australian Federal Police.
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Hicks will live with control order says father
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Convicted terrorism supported David Hicks will live with a control order requested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and approved by a Federal magistrate last week his father says.
David Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, told News Ltd that his son was now increasingly "excited" about being released from prison, adding that he simply wanted to get on with his life.
"I think we've got to realise that in that time David has been in a small room for all that time, and Saturday, all of a sudden, he's going to walk out into that huge open expanse [and] into the arms of the media," Terry Hicks said.
Mr Hicks also said that he wanted to avoid the need for his son to front the media, amidst what is expected to be a national event given his release later in the week.
"One of the things he's worried about is how he's going to cope with it. That's why at this point he'd prefer not to have to front up to the media." he said.
David Hicks served nearly five years at the US operated and Cuban based Guantanamo Bay and was released following a brokered-deal between Australia and the United States.
Hicks has since his arrival back into Australia in early-2007 spent the remainder of his sentence in South Australia's Yatala Prison.
As part of his release to Australia, David Hicks is however not permitted to grant interviews to any media outlets until at least March 2008, with Terry Hicks saying his son may possibly make a statement following his release.
Terry Hicks also told News Ltd that reports his son was suffering from agoraphobia were incorrect, and that he was only "anxious" in the build-up to his release from prison.
"What actually happened there was when David was removed from the system here to Holden Hill (police station to prepare him for release), he was surrounded by uniforms, he got a bit anxious and apprehensive," he said.
David Hicks will become only the second Australian to be subject to the terrorism-specific control order, with the first being Jack Thomas who was suspected of involvement with Indonesian terrorist groups.
Hicks will be released from prison at the weekend.
David Hicks Case Information
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