US:Australian prisoner David Hicks stood before a US military judge at the Guantanamo naval base yesterday to answer a charge of providing material support for terrorism by fighting for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner is the first prisoner charged in the revised military tribunals created by the US Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that Mr Bush authorised to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.
Hicks is accused of fighting for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan during the US-led invasion in 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo for more than five years.
Hicks faces life in prison if convicted and was expected to plead not guilty after the charges were read at yesterday's hearing.
He wore a khaki prison uniform and was unshackled as military guards escorted him into the flag-draped courtroom. He had grown his hair to chest-length so he could use it to cover his eyes from the lights that shine in his cell all night, said one of his Australian attorneys, David McLeod.
Hicks has claimed he was sodomised and beaten - ( Reuters )