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Australian Guantanamo detainee files injunction

Lawyers for an Australian detainee filed an injunction to stall a US military commission but said on Saturday it is most likely the first hearing under a new system of tribunals will go forward as planned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The legal team for David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian charged with providing material support for terrorism, filed an injunction in US District Court in Washington last week asking for the military commission trial to be suspended.

Hicks is scheduled to appear before the military commission on March 26 -- more than five years after he was imprisoned at the US base. Hicks' Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said he did not think the injunction would be successful.

"We just wanted to get it in," he said.

One of Hicks' civilian lawyers, Joshua Dratel, said they sought the injunction to coincide with an appeal by Guantanamo inmates asking the US Supreme Court to step in a third time to guarantee that they can use US courts to challenge their confinement.

Hicks, one of the first detainees to arrive at the prison in January 2002, was charged on March 1 with providing material support for terrorism for allegedly fighting on the side of the ousted Taliban regime when US-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

A former kangaroo skinner and Muslim convert from the southern Australian city of Adelaide, Hicks was handed over to US troops, then taken to Guantanamo Bay, where he has been since.

In August 2004, he pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges before a US military commission. Hicks was among 10 detainees who had been charged with crimes under an earlier law that the US Supreme Court struck down.

Currently, the Australian is one of three detainees designated by the Pentagon to face criminal charges under the new rules for military commissions. So far, only Hicks has been charged.

US President George W. Bush and the US Congress established the new military tribunal system last year. Lawmakers set up the legal system after the Supreme Court ruled an older version established was unconstitutional.

Hicks' lawyer and family have said he would not receive a fair trial under the new military commission process.

His father, Terry Hicks, and friends have repeatedly called for his release.

Dratel said Terry Hicks was expected to attend the March 26 hearing at the isolated base in eastern Cuba. He attended an August 2004 hearing when his son pleaded innocent to war crimes charges before a US military commission.

"We made a request for him to attend again and the military complied," Dratel said.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman, said he was unable to confirm what arrangements, if any, had been made with Hicks' father to attend the hearing at Guantanamo.

Roughly 385 prisoners are held at the US base on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. About 80 detainees are designated for release or transfer.
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