 THE United States has transferred two Algerian detainees from Guantanamo Bay to their native country. The announcement named the two man as Hasan Zemiri and Adil Hadi al-Jazairi Bin Hamlili and came on the eve of what was once President Barack Obama's target date to close the notorious facility. But a political firestorm at home over the Obama administration's plans to house some of the terror suspects on US soil and the reluctance of foreign allies in released detainees have dealt a blow to his landmark promise. Some 196 detainees remain at the US military prison in southern Cuba, including dozens already cleared for release, down from around 250 when Obama took office. Most have been held without charge or trial. Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said Tuesday that his country would accept three prisoners from the jail "as a gesture of alliance and solidarity.'' US lawmakers and the Defense Department have warned that a growing number of former Guantanamo detainees are joining militant groups to fight against the United States. A Pentagon report in April found that about 14 percent of former Guantanamo inmates either had or were suspected of having ties to militants. Obama suspended the transfers to Yemen after it emerged that the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow himself up aboard a US-bound airliner carrying nearly 300 people was allegedly trained by an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. But in its statement about the latest transfers, the Justice Department said "the United States coordinated with the government of Algeria to ensure the transfers took place under appropriate security measures.'' Hours before the transfer was announced, Obama's Republican foes unveiled legislation to restrict his ability to transfer Guantanamo detainees overseas, in the latest possible setback to his plans to close the facility. The Detainee Transfer and Release Security Act of 2010 aims to require Obama to certify that a detainee's destination country is not a state sponsor of terror, has control over its territory and does not tolerate safe havens for extremists like Al-Qaeda. The measure also called for the president to certify that there has been no confirmed case of a Guantanamo Bay detainee engaging in extremist activities after being released to the proposed destination. The legislation was unlikely to attract enough support from the president's Democratic allies to become law. The Australian 
 The criminal case against the first Guantanamo detainee standing trial in a US civilian court should be thrown out because he was denied the right to a speedy trial, defence lawyers have argued. But the US government said in the Manhattan federal court on Monday that gathering intelligence from Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani during interrogations was "weightier, more significant" than giving him a speedy trial. The case of Ghailani, a Tanzanian national charged over his alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, is being watched for precedents that could affect other Guantanamo detainees. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, is also due to be tried in Manhattan federal court. Alluding to the importance of the proceeding, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said during Monday's session: "I think everybody can agree that whatever I do here would be unprecedented." Ghailani was taken into custody in Pakistan in July 2004 and interrogated outside the US as part of the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" programme in which suspects were captured in one country and interrogated in another. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 and his case was moved to the Manhattan federal court last June. He has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda to kill Americans, as well as separate charges of murder for the 224 people killed in the African bombings. Ghailani's case, which coincides with the eighth anniversary of the first group of 20 detainees being sent to Guantanamo in 2002, is a test for Barack Obama's plans to shut down the US military prison. Last week, the US president reiterated his commitment to shut it down although the White House has conceded that he will not meet his self-imposed deadline of the end of January. Obama also suspended the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen last week, following revelations that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to destroy a Detroit-bound US airliner on December 25, reportedly received al-Qaeda training in Yemen. Nearly 200 detainees remain at Guantanamo, nearly half of them from Yemen. The US government is working to refurbish a prison in the state of Illinois to hold some detainees while their fate is determined. Al Jazeera
 Guantanamo (Gitmo) Bay detainees may soon be headed for a courtroom near you, according to a report on Sunday mornings Fox and Friends. House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, have passed a bill that would allow the inmates to be transferred to U.S. soil for prosecution and incarceration. Lawmakers against the legislation have pointed out that in one fell swoop, House Democrats, by voting for this legislation, have put Americans in danger, have weakened the judicial system and undermined the Constitution. John Colburson, Congressman from Texas and member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, explained why bringing the Gitmo detainees here for trial is a bad idea: Never before in American history have we given foreign soldiers, captured on foreign battlefields, U.S. Constitutional rights. They have now passed a law that, when our American men and women in uniform, capture an enemy soldier on a foreign battlefield, our men and women are going to have to think about the chain of evidence, of reading them their Miranda Rights foreign soldiers will now be able to lawyer-up at U.S. taxpayer expense to be tried in U.S. Courtrooms. Its absurd. As of now, there are roughly 220 hard-core Islamic terrorist prisoners remaining in the Guantanamo facility, which was opened at the U.S. naval base in Cuba after the Sept. 11 attacks.
President Barack Obama has been a staunch proponent of having the prison closed, announcing on his second day in office that he wanted it closed within a year. The problem is, he hasn't been able to do so because of some major legal and political hurdles. In addition, closing Gitmo entails solving one major problem: no one seems to want the prisoners. Well, almost no one. There does seem to be one place where the terrorists will not only be welcome, but the elected officials there are almost begging to get them. Can you guess who it is that wants them that badly? Is it Saudi Arabia, Libya or Yemen? Nope its Michigan. Some local officials in and around Standish, Michigan, home to the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility (which is otherwise scheduled to close later this month), think that transferring the worst of the worst from Gitmo will somehow stimulate the local economy and provide jobs in the community. Former Defense Department terrorism analyst Peter Leitner thinks this is bunk, and he predicts that the security threat posed by importing the terrorists far outweighs any economic benefits: Michigan will become a magnet for foreign and domestic terror cells, as well as radical organizations of the left and right. If there are homegrown terror cells looking for a good cause, this will be a good cause for them. Retired Army Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, a former Army Special Forces officer and author of a book about Gitmo, agrees: Everyone in Guantanamo is there because he wants to kill Americans. What we’re doing is hanging a target not only on Standish, but also on the whole community, the whole region. Dont worry, good people of Michigan. Obama, Pelosi and those Democrats who voted for this know what they are doing. NRB
 By Thomas Joscelyn A former Guantanamo detainee has emerged as a leading ideologue and theologian for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – one of the strongest al Qaeda affiliates in the world. Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and then handed over to American officials who transferred him to Guantanamo. Rubaish was held there until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen.
In February 2009, the Saudi Kingdom placed Rubaish, along with at least 10 other former Gitmo detainees, on its list of 85 most-wanted terrorists. One of the former Gitmo detainees Rubaish fled to Yemen with, Said Ali al Shihri, is now the deputy of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which was formed when the al Qaeda branches in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged. Two other former Gitmo detainees who fled to Yemen along with Rubaish have been killed in shootouts. [See LWJ reports "Former Gitmo detainee killed in shootout" and "Another former Gitmo detainee killed in shootout."] Since leaving Saudi Arabia, Rubaish has become an influential proponent of waging jihad against the Saudi royals. Rubaish’s influence is so great that he has risen to the rank of Mufti within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to an analysis by the Jamestown Foundation. The role of Mufti is crucial for al Qaeda’s operations because the Mufti provides the theological justifications for the organization’s terrorism.
The Saudi regime has consistently challenged the religious credentials of al Qaeda’s Muftis since 2003, when the kingdom launched a widespread crackdown on the terrorist network in response to attacks on Saudi interests.
Rubaish is now the terrorist leader responsible for providing al Qaeda’s answer to the Saudi regime’s theological arguments. Rubaish has attempted to establish his religious credentials by writing a book that challenges the authority of Sheikh Salman al Ouda, who is a popular Saudi cleric. Al Ouda himself was once an outspoken critic of the Saudi royal family and repeatedly challenged its legitimacy in the early 1990s.
Al Ouda was even cited and praised by Osama bin Laden in a 1994 screed entitled “The Betrayal of Palestine,” in which the terror master lambasted the Saudi government’s own top Mufti, Bin Baaz, for endorsing the 1993 Oslo Accords. After being imprisoned for several years, al Ouda changed his tune and renounced his prior disloyalty. Sheikh al Ouda currently supervises the Islam Today web site on behalf of the Saudi regime. In his book, Rubaish chastised al Ouda for his “alliance” with the Saudi regime. More at Long War Journal
 Britain's High Court ruled Friday that the government must disclose secret details of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee's alleged torture. Judges said Foreign Secretary David Miliband should release undisclosed sections of a 2008 ruling on the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, despite Miliband's claim that to do so could harm intelligence sharing with the United States. Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He alleges he was tortured there and in Morocco before he was transferred to Afghanistan and then to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. His lawyers claim that seven paragraphs previously redacted from the 2008 ruling, which have seen by legal officials but not publicly released, offer critical details about Mohamed's treatment overseas. Miliband had argued that disclosing details of Mohamed's treatment could damage intelligence cooperation between Britain and the United States. He said the paragraphs include a summary of intelligence provided to Britain by the U.S. By tradition, intelligence services vow not to disclose details of each other's intelligence. But Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice David Lloyd Jones ruled that releasing the paragraphs would pose no serious threat to national security. They said they could not accept "that there is a real risk that the United States would reassess its intelligence relationship or reduce its intelligence sharing if we made the seven paragraphs public." The judges did not immediately release the paragraphs or specify exactly when the details would be disclosed. Miliband said he was "deeply disappointed" by the judgment and intends to appeal. "It remains my assessment that the consequence of the court's judgment today, if left unchallenged, will be a restriction on what is shared with us," he said in a statement. Several groups, including The Associated Press, had sued to make the information public. Source: FoxNews
 By Pamela Hess
The Taliban's new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration's efforts to close the prison. U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.
Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007. Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.
The officials, who spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to release the information, said Rasoul has joined a growing faction of former Guantanamo prisoners who have rejoined militant groups and taken action against U.S. interests. Pentagon officials have said that as many as 60 former detainees have resurfaced on foreign battlefields.
Pentagon and intelligence officials said Rasoul has emerged as a key militant figure in southern Afghanistan, where violence has been spiking in the last year. Thousands of U.S. troops are preparing to deploy there to fight resurgent Taliban forces.
One intelligence official told the Associated Press that Rasoul's stated mission is to counter the U.S. troop surge.
Although the militant detainees who have resurfaced were released under the Bush administration, the revelation underscores the Obama administration's dilemma in moving to close the detention camp at Guantanamo and figuring out what to do with the nearly 250 prisoners who remain there.
In one of his first acts in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the jail next year. The order also convened a task force that will determine how to handle remaining detainees, who could be transferred to other U.S. detention facilities for trial, transferred to foreign nations for legal proceedings or freed.
More than 800 prisoners have been imprisoned at Guantanamo; only a handful have been charged. About 520 Guantanamo detainees have been released from custody or transferred to prisons elsewhere in the world.
A Pentagon tally of the detainees released show that 122 were transferred from Guantanamo in 2007, more than any other year.
The Pentagon's preferred option is to hand them over to their home governments for imprisonment. But the Defense Intelligence Agency's growing list of former prisoners that have rejoined the fight shows that, in some cases, that system does not work.
According to the Pentagon, at least 18 former Guantanamo detainees have "returned to the fight" and 43 others are suspected of resuming terrorist activities. The Pentagon has declined to provide a complete list of the former prisoners they suspect are now on the battlefield.
According to case documents assembled by the U.S. military for a 2005 review of Rasoul's combatant status at Guantanamo, the Afghan was captured in 2001 in Konduz.
Armed with a gun and sitting in the car of an alleged Taliban leader, Rasoul insisted to American authorities he was forced to carry the gun by the Taliban. Rasoul told the tribunal in 2005 that in fact he had surrendered with other Taliban members to the Northern Alliance in Konduz on Dec. 12, 2001.
The Northern Alliance was involved in a protracted civil war with the Taliban, and was allied with U.S. forces in the October 2001 invasion.
Rasoul told the tribunal that he and others were then handed over to the Americans for bounties.
According to the U.S. documents, Rasoul was conscripted into the Taliban in 1995, and was seriously wounded in a bombing in 1997. He returned to the Taliban in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in 1999.
Rasoul, who hailed from Helmand province in southern Afghanistan_ a Taliban stronghold_ never attended a Taliban or al-Qaida training camp. A key piece of evidence against him was that he was captured with two Casio watches similar to those used in al-Qaida bombings. He said he was holding the watches for a Taliban member who lacked pockets.
He told the tribunal that he intended to return to a peaceful life in Afghanistan.
"I want to go back home and join my family and work in my land and help my family," he said, according to a U.S. military transcript of the hearing.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said Tuesday that at least two Saudi detainees also turned up recently as members of al-Qaida in Yemen after they were released from Guantanamo. The Saudis had been handed over by the U.S. to Saudi Arabia, where they were supposedly rehabilitated as part of a Saudi program to reform extremists.
The Bush administration's decision to transfer militants to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation "doesn't inspire confidence," Blair said.
But he told the House Intelligence Committee last month that the prison must be closed because of the damage it has done to America's reputation. It is too powerful a negative symbol to remain open, he said.
The jail at the U.S. base in Cuba, created by the Bush administration in 2002, has been criticized worldwide for allegations of abuse of prisoners and their legal status. Source: AP
 Binyam MohamedFebruary 24
A BRITISH resident detained at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years has walked free after returning to Britain and alleging he had been "tortured in medieval ways''.
The transfer of Binyam Mohamed - who was born in Ethiopia but held British residency at the time of his arrest - was the first under US President Barack Obama, who ordered the closure of the "war on terror'' prison on Cuba two days after taking office on January 20.
It came as a review of conditions at the detention camp by the US Department of Defence called for easing the isolation of some inmates and allowing them more social contact and recreation.
Dressed in casual clothes, Mohamed, 30, landed in a small plane at RAF Northolt airbase in northwest London and was escorted across the runway by officials.
He was then detained by police officers under anti-terror laws and questioned for nearly five hours before being freed and told he would face no further action.
"He's now been released full stop, that's the end of it,'' a Metropolitan Police spokesman told AFP.
His lawyer Clive Stafford Smith told reporters Mohamed then had a "tearful reunion'' with his sister, who he had not seen for seven years, and was heading for a secret location.
"He just wants to go to a place we've got for him tonight where he can be by himself with his sister and hopefully begin to put his life together again.''
Stafford Smith said that Mohamed was not angry but "sad'' and "grateful'' for the support he had received.
In a statement released through his lawyers earlier, Mohamed said he could not face talking to the media yet and alleged that British officials had colluded with his "abusers''.
"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares.
"Before this ordeal, 'torture' was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim.
"It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all orchestrated by the United States government.''
He alleged that British officials had questioned him in Pakistan and that evidence was then used by "the people who were torturing me''.
"The very worst moment came when I realised... the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.''
Mohamed faces an uncertain future in Britain while his immigration and security status is established, with deportation to Ethiopia possible.
He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 before being taken to Morocco and Afghanistan, and then on to Guantanamo Bay, where he spent more than four years.
He was suspected of attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and of plotting to build a radioactive "dirty bomb'', but was never charged.
The British Foreign Office has stressed that his return does not imply he will be allowed to remain in Britain. He has been granted temporary admission to Britain.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "We have got to look at the details of the arrangements, but... we will do everything in our power to protect the security of people in our country and the home secretary will take whatever action is necessary.''
All nine British nationals held in Guantanamo were released in 2004 and 2005. Of the six British residents, four were released in 2007.
Following Mohamed's release, the one British resident remaining in the detention camp is Shaker Aamer.
"We have requested from the US an offer of release and return (for Aamer) but the US government has so far declined to agree on his return to the UK,'' a Foreign Office spokesman told AFP.
The review of conditions at Guantanamo by the Pentagon, meanwhile, found that while the prison complied with the Geneva Conventions, in certain high-security areas "further socialisation is essential to maintain humane treatment over time". Source: The Australian
 January 03, 2009
AUSTRALIA will not take any former inmates of the US' Guantanamo Bay detention centre, acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.
Ms Gillard said the Federal Government advised the US late night that Australia would refuse the American request.
It was the second time the administration of US President George W. Bush had asked Australia to resettle detainees from the War on Terror camp.
"We have considered that request and last night Australian time, Friday US time, we advised the US Government that we would not be agreeing to those resettlement requests," Ms Gillard said.
"Those resettlement requests were considered on a case by case basis against Australia's stringent national security and immigration criteria.
"Assessing those requests on a case by case basis (they) have not met those stringent national security and immigration criteria and have been rejected.
"(As) for the future, we will consider any future requests on a case by case basis against these stringent criteria for both national security and immigration."
She said both requests had been made by the administration of George W. Bush, not of US President-elect Barack Obama.
The second request came as incoming Mr Obama plans to shut the prison, located at a US sovereign naval base in Cuba, within two years.
The US has cleared about 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees for release, but they cannot be returned to their home nations due to security concerns.
Yesterday, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull called on the Federal Government to resist the US request.
The Times of London reported this week that Britain was preparing to take detainees to allow Mr Obama's Government to shut down the prison. Source: The Australian
 January 01, 2009
BRITAIN is preparing to receive foreign terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay so that Barack Obama can shut it down.
Government sources say that Britain now supports moves to rehouse the detainees, despite previous refusals to help George W. Bush.
A Downing Street official said that a process to deal with the detainees was being put in place and that decisions "would be for the Home Secretary to decide on a case-by-case basis".
The preparations come just days after Kevin Rudd left open the possibility of Australia taking former inmates in response to a report in The Australian detailing the US State Department's efforts to have countries help it clear out the prison.
The issue is the subject of intense negotiations within Whitehall. The Foreign Office appears much keener on the idea than other departments, which will have to deal with the suspects' immigration status and whether they will need special housing and cash benefits. Having foreign terror suspects with no links to the UK housed here inevitably will provoke controversy.
"Of course the Foreign Office wants to do it, they want to get off to a good start with Obama," said a Whitehall source. "This is the sort of thing that will require a Cabinet-level decision."
Britain accepts that the prison should be closed, according to a diplomatic source, and that the US is going to need help to close it. The Government is supporting a call from Portugal for EU members to resettle detainees.
The letter from the Foreign Minister Luis Amado to his EU counterparts follows weeks of internal EU discussions. Germany has said that it is considering taking in detainees. Mr Amado plans to raise the issue at a meeting of EU foreign ministers this month. It is also on the agenda at an EU General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting.
Late last year the Bush Administration sent a number of European allies, including Britain, a list of detainees, cleared for release by the US military, who face persecution in their home countries. The US State Department cabled about 100 countries for help in closing the jail.
The entreaties were met largely with refusals, but there is a desire to help Mr Obama, who has vowed to begin moves to close the prison as soon as he takes office this month.
The President-elect has not made any formal request for help, but there have been talks between the US State Department and his transition team and he has made clear that he will exert pressure on Europe to take prisoners no longer deemed a threat.
The US military says that of the 248 prisoners still in Guantanamo Bay, "approximately 60" have been cleared for release. One move being discussed in Washington is for the US to take in 17 Chinese Uighurs, who cannot return to China, as an opening gesture.
Mr Obama's plan is for the most dangerous detainees - between 30 and 80 men - to be taken to the US for formal trials. This presents problems, however, as evidence against inmates such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was obtained through duress. Source: The Australian From Times Online
 Verity Edwards | December 24, 2008
ALOYSIA Brooks, the University of Sydney student who stole David Hicks's heart, looks set to become his wife.
The couple have spoken about marriage to a Sydney pastor, who yesterday told The Australian the former Guantanamo Bay detainee had been waiting for court-imposed restrictions to be lifted so the two could honeymoon freely.
Ms Brooks, who flew to Adelaide with Hicks on Monday to spend Christmas with his family, has been wearing what appears to be an engagement ring.
Graham Long, a pastor at the Wayside Chapel, a Uniting Church mission in Sydney's Kings Cross, said he had spoken to Hicks about marriage but not about setting a date.
"Now that the control order has gone away it's a different deal," Mr Long said. "They're much more optimistic than they were a couple of weeks ago."
Mr Long said Hicks had told him he did not want security agents or undercover police covering his honeymoon.
Hicks is now able to travel interstate and overseas without permission from the Australian Federal Police.
Mr Long has been visiting Hicks regularly since the confessed terrorism supporter moved to Sydney to access rehabilitation services six months ago.
He said Hicks did not attend services at the Wayside Chapel.
However, Mr Long said he had provided a supporting role to Hicks and had regularly dined with him and Ms Brooks.
Hicks's father, Terry, said he was unaware his son was considering tying the knot. The couple might be planning to surprise him for Christmas, he said.
Ms Brooks, who is a postgraduate student at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and writes poetry on human rights issues, met Hicks in Sydney earlier this year.
The couple had kept their relationship under wraps until they were photographed together by The Australian at Adelaide airport on Monday. Source: The Australian Aloysia Brooks
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 Verity Edwards | December 23, 2008
SHE is the new woman in the changing life of former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. And Aloysia Brooks, a postgraduate student, is fiercely outspoken in defence of her man.
After flying in from Sydney with Hicks to spend his first Christmas in nine years at home with his family in Adelaide, Ms Brooks yesterday took The Australian aside to plead to "give him space".
Hicks was no longer a "confessed terrorism supporter", she said, despite the former kangaroo skinner's guilty plea before a US military commission last year.
"You don't know what went on there; you don't know under what conditions he signed (the confession)," Ms Brooks said.
Hicks should instead be referred to as a free man after the expiry of a court-imposed control order last Saturday.
Freeing Hicks after more than seven years in custody, including five years at the US military's controversial prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, was what brought the couple together.
Ms Brooks writes poetry on human rights issues and was this year enrolled at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. A Sydney woman with her distinctive first name leapt to Hicks's defence on a newspaper website in 2006.
"David Hicks is someone's brother, son and father," Aloysia wrote. "He gets scared, bleeds and feels pain just like you or I ... He is someone who deserves to be treated with dignity, respect and compassion no matter what he has done."
Ms Brooks also signed a petition last year calling for justice for Mohamed Haneef.
The romance blossomed after Hicks moved from his home town of Adelaide to Sydney six months ago, where he found it easier to access rehabilitation services and settle back into the community.
The couple, photographed together for the first time by The Australian yesterday, kept their relationship under wraps until now.
Hicks remained tightlipped when he flew into Adelaide to be met at the airport by his father, Terry, his staunchest defender through his imprisonment.
Standing by her fit-looking and tanned boyfriend, Ms Brooks hung back as Hicks shook hands with his father. When approached by The Australian, Hicks said: "No comment, but merry Christmas."
Once a practising Muslim, Hicks carried a wrapped Christmas gift off the plane. He renounced Islam while in Guantanamo Bay, according to his supporters. Terry Hicks said he was pleased to have his son and new partner home for the family's first Christmas together this decade.
"It's very special, but we're going to try to keep it as normal as we can - he's just part of the family," Mr Hicks said. "It's just lunch and a get-together, the same as everybody else. We're not going out of our way to make a big hype; it's just a normal get together."
A sign of Ms Brooks's acceptance in the family was her presence at a meeting yesterday between Hicks, his father and their Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod. Although freed of court restrictions on his movements and communications, Hicks is yet to comply with requests by the Australian Federal Police to interview him. Source: The Australian
December 21, 2008
FORMER Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks will fully focus on his rehabilitation program after his control order expired at midnight, his father said.
The convicted terrorism supporter has been living under a strict control order since his release from South Australia's Yatala jail last December.
Hicks' father Terry Hicks said his son was looking forward to his full freedom without having to report to police or abide by other control conditions, such as curfews or restrictions on his movements.
"At the moment, once it's all over, he's going to fully focus on his rehabilitation - it's what he wants to do," Mr Hicks said.
"What's been happening is he's been going to rehab, making good progress with the mental and physical things, then having to report to the police station so the rehab's been going out the window and he regresses in his treatment."
Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and in January the following year was transferred to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
On March 31 last year, under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to seven years' jail, but ordered to serve only nine months with the rest of his sentence suspended.
He returned to Australia in May last year and served out his remaining time in Yatala.
In a video released last month by lobby group GetUp!, Hicks promised to one day tell his story about "the hell that was Guantanamo Bay". Source: The Australian
November 20, 2008
A CONTROL order on convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks will not be renewed when it expires next month, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) say.
The control order on Hicks expires on December 21.
"Following extensive consultation with a number of agencies, the AFP has decided it will not be seeking a further control order in respect of Mr Hicks," the police said today.
"The AFP has today advised the Attorney-General and Mr Hicks’ legal representative of its position."
After spending the past 12 months banned from using the internet or even a public phone without the consent of the AFP, Hicks broke his silence in a video released this morning pleading for the restrictions to be lifted. Source: The Australian
 By Peter Veness | November 20, 2008
FORMER Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks has broken his silence, saying a court-imposed control order makes it hard for him to get on with his life.
The convicted terrorism supporter says he is very worried that the controversial control order obtained by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to restrict his activities may be extended.
The one-year order, which expires in December, is only the second such order placed on an Australian citizen.
"I'm concerned that the AFP will recommend the attorney-general impose a new control order," Hicks says in a video seen by Australian Associated Press.
The control order was imposed on Hicks after he was freed from jail last December and revised in February.
Under the order, Hicks has to report to police twice a week. He can live anywhere in Australia approved by the AFP, but he is not allowed to leave the country.
He also has to submit to fingerprint testing and is barred from possessing any explosives or firearms or any materials related to weapons, combat skills or military tactics.
The video plea was organised by lobby group GetUp!, which has called for a major review of the 44 counter-terrorism laws introduced after the September 11 terrorism attacks.
"I don't know what the future holds for me. The only thing I do know is that until the control order is lifted, I will not be able to get on with my life,'' Hicks says.
It's almost seven years since the Adelaide man was caught in Afghanistan and sent to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay.
He was imprisoned there for six years, before agreeing to plead guilty to a charge of supporting terrorism in exchange for returning home to serve the remainder of his sentence in South Australia's Yatala prison.
He has received a number of requests to tell his story after the gag order imposed by US military officials expired last March, but he has kept his silence until today.
Hicks says he will tell his full story one day, but he is not ready to do it just yet.
"I'm still recovering from that ordeal. I'm not yet ready to explain what happened or why," Hicks said. Source: The Australian
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THE United States has transferred two Algerian detainees from Guantanamo Bay to their native country. 
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