David Hicks became one of the many imprisoned without charge at Guantanamo Bay.
David Hicks, a young Australian serving as a footsoldier with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was captured by the Northern Alliance near Kunduz and handed over, for a $1,000 bounty, to the US authorities. On 11 January, 2002, Hicks was transferred to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to become one of hundreds of people imprisoned without charge in the name of the global "war on terror".
In Australia, Hicks's plight met with widespread indifference. Despite persistent allegations of abuse and torture against the US authorities and the troubling legal implications of Hicks's incarceration, the Australian public was in no mood to feel any sympathy for a man described as one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. Hicks languished in prison for five years. He was hastily returned to prison in Australia in May 2007, after a controversial military trial. This change was helped by a determined and often lonely campaign by his father, Terry Hicks, an ordinary Adelaide man who simply wants a fair trial for his son.
