Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday he had no sympathy for an Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, and urged the US to find another way of trying him after the US Supreme Court ruled out military tribunals.
Howard rejected calls to bring home David Hicks, a 31-year-old Muslim convert who is accused of fighting alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
"I don't have any sympathy for somebody who trained with an organization such as al-Qaeda," Howard told commercial radio.
In a major blow to US efforts to try "war on terror" suspects, the court ruled 5-3 on Thursday that the planned special military tribunals violated the Geneva Convention and US military law.
Howard, a faithful ally of US President George W. Bush who supported the tribunal process and sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, insisted Hicks must still be tried.
"What now has to happen is that, quite quickly in my view, the administration has to decide how it will deal with the trial of the people who are being held," he said.
Political opponents and legal experts rounded on Howard for doing nothing to secure Hicks' release after he has spent more than four years at the military base.
Britain secured the release of its nine nationals held at Guantanamo after arguing the commissions failed to uphold basic standards of justice.
"The Australian government has said, all along, that it had faith in the military commission process but none, presumably, in the presumption of innocence," said Tim Bugg, president of the Law Council of Australia.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said Howard had "dishonored this nation's law and its traditions."
"It is a disgrace which should end," he added.
Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, after allegedly attending al-Qaeda camps and fighting alongside the Taliban.
Dubbed the "Australian Taliban," he was the first Guantanamo detainee scheduled to face trial by the controversial military tribunals created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He denies charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
Ruling in the case of another Guantanamo detainee, Salim Hamdan, the Supreme Court said the Bush administration had overstepped its powers in setting up the tribunals, denying defendants the right to confront the evidence against them.
Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, said the ruling should spell the end of his son's four-and-a-half-year ordeal.
"Let's get him back here," he said.
Howard, however, urged Bush to find another means of trying the terrorist suspect.
"As the military commission trial is regarded by the court as unconstitutional, there clearly has to be another method of trial -- a court martial or a civilian trial -- which conforms with the Supreme Court decision," he said.
Senior officials in Washington said that Bush intends to work with Congress to gain approval for special military trials that would comply with the ruling, rather than turn to regular US military courts.
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