http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/2002/02/21/FFXW8SA0WXC.html

Family challenges America's right to hold Hicks


By GAY ALCORN
UNITED STATES CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
Thursday 21 February 2002

Families of Australian David Hicks and two British citizens detained as suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba yesterday filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the US holding prisoners indefinitely and without laying charges.

It is the first lawsuit on behalf of individuals imprisoned on the American naval base. Lawyers for the three men said that Hicks, 26, of Adelaide, and Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, 24, from Britain, were not terrorists.

Their imprisonment in Cuba without access to lawyers or their families violated US constitutional guarantees of legal due process and international law, the lawyers said.

Hicks' lawyer, Joseph Margulies, said: "There are few principles more firmly established in our law than the prohibition against arbitrary, indefinite detention.

"The President of the United States and the executive branch simply cannot hold a person for the rest of his life without legal process, without judicial review, without being charged and without counsel, particularly when the possible outcome was the imposition of the death penalty."

Mr Hicks was captured by Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan on December 9 and handed over to the US military.

His family has been denied access to him, and says he is a Muslim convert who fought with the Taliban long before the US or Australia contemplated military action in Afghanistan.

The Australian Government says it believes Mr Hicks was an al Qaeda fighter.

There are 300 detainees from more than 25 countries at "Camp X-Ray".

All are being interrogated, and could face military tribunals or civilian courts, be sent home for trial or detained indefinitely. Mr Margulies said it was unlikely the three plaintiffs were aware of the lawsuit.