
Now do I really look like a jihadist to you, hmmm?
He doesn’t even have a beard — of course he must have been “deluded” and is now on the “right track.” Soon, he will even tell us “his story.” Hey, he might even get a book deal and appear on Oprah out of all this. More on “his story”, including how he deemed Osama bin Laden a “lovely man” and took orders from him.
“‘Australian Taleban’ fully free,” from the BBC, December 21:
An Australian former inmate of the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay is now a free man after Australian police lifted strict controls on his actions.
David Hicks spent more than five years at Guantanamo Bay without a trial before admitting to charges of providing material support to al-Qaeda.
In return, he was allowed in May 2007 to serve out the last nine months of his sentence in an Australian prison.
Hicks, a convert to Islam, was captured by US troops in Afghanistan in 2001.
The former kangaroo wrangler was the first “enemy combatant” held at Guantanamo to be convicted by a US military commission.
‘Still recovering’
The control orders limiting his movements expired at midnight on Saturday.
Australian police said they would not seek to extend the measures after Hicks made a public appeal to be allowed to “get on with my life“.
He was subject to a strict curfew and restrictions on his travel and had to report regularly to police.
His telephone and internet communications were also limited.
Hicks has admitted to training with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and meeting its leader, Osama Bin Laden.
The 33-year-old has said he is recovering still from his ordeal at Guantanamo Bay and is not ready yet to tell his story.
But he has said he will do so.