Australia's leading lawyers group called on Britain yesterday to act to help secure the release of Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay.
The Australian Law Council said British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government should process Hicks' application for British citizenship swiftly and hasten his return home, after more than four years in detention at the US military facility in Cuba.
Hicks, 31, denies allegations that he fought alongside the former Taliban regime allied to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group in Afghanistan.
He is applying for British citizenship in the hope that Blair's government will work for his release, as London has previously secured the freedom of nine British citizens previously held at the base.
"Given Mr Hicks has spent four-and-a-half years in detention, it's only fair that authorities move as quickly as possible to process his case," said the council's president John North, who recently met Britain's Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith in London to discuss the case.
"We know from talking to Mr. Hicks' lawyers that, more than anything else, he wants to be with his family once he is released," North said in a statement.
"Then, we hope, all it would take is for Britain to put Mr. Hicks on a plane to Australia after his release," North said.
Britain obtained the release of nine of its citizens held at the US prison but Australia has refused to do the same, saying Hicks will have to face US laws.
The British Court of Appeal last month ruled that Hicks is entitled to British citizenship because his mother is from the United Kingdom.
London is resisting Hicks' citizenship attempt, however, and has indicated it may take the case to the House of Lords, the highest appeal court in Britain, to block the application.
The Australian is one of only 10 of the more than 400 detainees being held at Guantanamo to have been charged with terrorism offenses.
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