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CANBERRA - Australia's only Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks should be charged in early 2007 after five years in detention for alleged terrorism offences, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
Howard said he was unhappy at the way Hicks' case had dragged on. Australian rallies are planned for this weekend to demand Hicks, 31, be released or returned to Australia to face justice.
"I'm not happy about it having taken so long and we are on a very regular basis pressing the Americans for a commitment that he be formally charged under the new military commission," Howard told Australian radio.
"We are very hopeful that there will be formal charges brought against him early in the new year."
Hicks was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 and accused of fighting for al Qaeda. This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of his detention and no charges have been brought against him.
War crimes trials at Guantanamo were halted when the US Supreme Court in June rejected the tribunal system set up by President George W Bush to try foreign terrorism suspects.
Four Australian government lawmakers this week demanded Hicks be released, upping pressure on Howard to find a resolution.
Lawyers this week asked Australia's Federal Court in Sydney for a special hearing in a bid to bring Hicks home by Christmas.
Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer were named in papers filed with the court alleging the government had failed in its constitutional duty to protect and repatriate him.
Howard said the legal challenges were responsible for as much as two years of Hicks' detention.
"That is not a good situation, but I am none-the-less constrained to point out that the constant appeals have accounted for a lot of the delay," Howard said.
Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg said the government had not given Hicks his proper legal rights.
"It's not a question of guilt or innocence, it's just simply been a question that he hasn't been afforded proper process to which any person is entitled to expect he or she will get," Bugg told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
- REUTERS
