Hicks just not handling it well: Ruddock

January 31, 2007

Despite claims from terror suspect David Hicks, his father and his lawyers that Hicks is deteriorating by the day, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock today said the Adelaide-born man may simply not be "handling" his detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"People respond to detention in different ways," Mr Ruddock told reporters in Sydney today.

"I don't hear most people who are detained in Australia are found to be unfit to plead simply because they've been detained.

"Some people don't handle it well."

Hicks' father Terry insists his son's mental and physical condition is deteriorating as his detention at the US military prison stretches into its sixth year.

His Australian lawyer David McLeod says the terrorist suspect is showing symptoms of mental deterioration, has seen direct sunlight only three times in the past month and "shows all the signs of someone who has been kept in isolation for a very long time".

Hicks himself, in a letter to the Australian consul-general in Washington, John McAnulty, said: "I am not well, I am not OK."

Australian Democrats attorney-general spokesperson Natasha Stott Despoja believes Hicks has good reason for not handling his detention well, saying today it was an abuse of human rights that the Adelaide man was "being detained in this hellhole".

However, Mr Ruddock insisted Hicks had not been the subject of torture or coercion and that his conditions complied with those of standard US maximum security facilities.

"Advice that we have had is that he has been treated humanely and in accordance with the international standards for interrogations," he said.

The attorney-general said the sleep deprivation Hicks allegedly suffered was not torturous on its own.

"It depends upon what you do additionally," he said.

"If you use loud noise, or continuous light or subject people to pain to keep people awake ... I would say yes, it's unacceptable.

"But on its own, it doesn't of itself constitute either coercion or torture."

Mr Ruddock also questioned claims that Hicks was in isolation, saying he was now simply occupying a single occupancy cell after several moves to different accommodation within the camp.

"In the two latter facilities the accommodation was not shared accommodation," he said.

"Some people want to describe non-shared accommodation as isolation.

"He is allowed out for exercise. He's allowed out for reading and other recreational purposes. He's able to mix with other detainees."

I'm afraid to speak to you: Hicks letter

David Hicks has written a letter from his Guantanamo Bay prison cell in which he details his distrust of Australian embassy officials.

The letter comes as the US prosecutor preparing the case against Hicks said he expected the Australian to be charged by the end of the week.

Hicks wrote the letter when an Australian official arrived at Guantanamo "for an unannounced and clearly hastily arranged meeting with David Hicks",  his Adelaide lawyer David McLeod said.

Mr McLeod and other members of Hicks's legal team, including US appointed military lawyer Major Michael Mori, are also at Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years.

"I don't want to see you," Hicks wrote in the letter to the visiting Australian official.

"I am afraid to speak to you."

Hicks, who also wrote he is "not well", then detailed in the letter how he had been punished previously for speaking to Australian embassy officials.

The Adelaide man also alleges an American recently impersonated an Australian official.

"Only last week an American impersonated an Australian embassy official by claiming he was 'from the Australian embassy in Washington'," Hicks wrote.

"This deteriorates my trust even further.

"In the past I have been punished for speaking to you.

"I am not well, I am not OK and yet you have not done anything for me and the Australian Government keeps saying I'm fine and in an acceptable situation.

"To speak with you and tell you the truth and reality of my situation 'once again' would only risk further punishments.

"You are not here for me but on behalf of the Australian Government who are leaving me here.

"If you want to do something for me then get me out of here."

No concerns: Downer

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said 18 consular visits to Guantanamo Bay by Australian officials from Washington had raised no concerns about Hicks' treatment, and two previous allegations that Hicks had been tortured had been denied by the US.

But he said the government took such allegations seriously.

"As far as allegations of maltreatment are concerned, we'd obviously be very concerned if those allegations were true," Mr Downer told ABC radio.

"We've had the allegations (of torture) investigated on two occasions. If there's fresh information that somebody can bring forward, rather than a sort of Labor Party rant about being mean to al-Qaeda ... then we're obviously happy to investigate it.

"We're arguing for Hicks to be well treated."

Mr Downer said there was no evidence that Hicks was shackled in his cell.

"My understanding is he isn't shackled in his cell," he said.

"Consular officials have visited on a number of occasions and most recently in the last day and have visited the cell, and there isn't any evidence that he's being shackled in his cell."

He had been told the cell was "consistent with the high-security prisons that exist in the United States".

Labor said it was concerned about the interrogation techniques the US had approved for use on Guantanamo inmates and said the government had never requested that the methods not be used on Hicks.

They include hooding, stripping prisoners naked, questioning for up to 20 hours, exposure to extreme temperatures, reversal of sleep cycles and the use of prisoners' phobias, including fear of dogs, to induce stress.

Mr Downer said he would check what techniques had been approved for use on Hicks, adding that the United States had a different perspective on terrorist suspects.

"The perspective of the Americans after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre is that al-Qaeda and people associated with al-Qaeda are a very major threat to the security of their nation," he said.

"So naturally enough in those circumstances they've been pretty tough on people they believe to have been involved with al-Qaeda."

Unannounced Australian official

Mr McLeod said the unnamed Australian official arrived at Guantanamo unannounced this morning.

The lawyer said the official was given a tour of the new prison facility, Camp 6, where Hicks was now housed.

"Despite persistent unsuccessful requests for Hicks' legal team to see the facilities at Camp 6, the consul was given a guided tour this morning and taken into David's cell without Hicks knowledge or consent and while he was conferring with his legal team," Mr McLeod wrote in a statement released to the media.

"Subsequently the consul attended at the interview facility at GTMO (Guantanamo) where David was conferring with his legal team to meet with Hicks, but alerted to this, David said he did not want to see him.

"Instead he wrote a letter which David's military lawyer Major Mori provided to the consul in which he made it clear that he did not want to see him."

Despite the letter from Hicks, the Australian official was taken to see Hicks, Mr McLeod wrote.

"Notwithstanding this letter, the Australian consul was escorted by US camp lawyers to see David," he wrote.

"Currently we do not know the outcome of this forced interrogation which is clearly a cynical exercise in damage control."

Bogus claims: US prosecutor

The US prosecutor preparing the case against Hicks, Colonel Mo Davis, denied that Hicks was being held in harsh conditions and rejected claims the Australian was shackled to the floor of his cell in conditions that resembled a Nazi concentration camp.

"I just wanted to make sure that that was bogus, so I called to check on his condition and I'm told everything's fine," he told ABC Radio.

Attorney-General Ruddock has asked the US Government for a detailed assessment of Hicks's health and conditions of detention.

But he has urged caution about quick judgments on the situation.

"I've asked that an assessment be carried out and that that be dealt with as a matter of urgency," Mr Ruddock told ABC radio.

"I think informed views on this matter should await some more detailed assessment."

Labor said the Government's ready acceptance of assurances from the US was wrong.

"Those general assurances are inadequate," shadow attorney-general Kelvin Thomson said.

"It is simply not good enough for the Australian government to accept whatever assurances it is given."

A spokesperson at the Australian embassy in Washington DC could not be immediately reached.

Hicks, 31, has been in US custody since his capture near Baghlan, Afghanistan, in December 2001.


