Al-Qaeda-trained Aussie David Hicks hit by major new blow just days before his 50th birthday

Daily Mail​

3 hours ago

Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks - who was convicted of Al-Qaeda terror charges before they were overturned ten years ago - is facing a major health battle.
Hicks converted to Islam as a teenager in 1999 and trained at Al-Qaeda terror camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan before he was handed over to the US military in 2001.
The US branded him an enemy combatant and transferred him to the US Naval base in Cuba where he was held with other terror suspects for more than five years.
He said he was tortured while being held there and only pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism because of his 'desperation for release from Guantanamo', his lawyer said.
The former jackaroo was allowed to serve the remaining nine months of his seven-year suspended sentence in Australia in 2007, before the conviction was overturned in 2015.
He has since kept a relatively low profile, but his father Terry Hicks has now revealed his son is facing a new crisis just days before his 50th birthday on Thursday.
'He's not doing well,' Mr Hicks told the Daily Mail at his home in Adelaide's northern suburbs, where he campaigned tirelessly for his son's freedom 20 years ago.
'He has heart problems [and] he can't get work.'
Mr Hicks, seen this week with Hicks' stepmother, Bev, said his son still suffers psychological problems from his treatment at Guantanamo.
Before converting to Islam, Hicks worked as a farmhand on outback cattle stations in the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia.
The father of two initially travelled to Kosovo in the Balkans to join the Kosovo Liberation Army which triggered his religious conversion on his return to Adelaide.
He then travelled to Pakistan in 1999 to study Islam, attended a terror training camp where he learnt to use military weapons, and subsequently crossed into Afghanistan.
Once there, he reportedly attended several camps, including al-Qaeda's Al Farouk training camp, where he used the alias Muhammad Dawood.
He denied any knowledge of connections between the camp and the terrorist group, insisting he did not know what al-Qaeda was at the time.
But he did meet with group leader Osama Bin Laden, who claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in New York, which killed 2,977 people in 2001.
In letters to his parents between 1999 and 2001, revealed in the Adelaide Federal Magistrates Court in 2007, Hicks called Bin Laden a 'lovely' person.
'He's a lovely brother - the only reason the West calls him a... terrorist is because he got the money to take action,' he wrote.
'I am now very well trained for jihad in weapons, some serious like anti-aircraft missiles.'
He was finally handed over to the US military in late 2001 by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, who received a $5,000 bounty for surrendering him to the US, and he was sent to Guantanamo Bay.
In a 2004 affidavit, Hicks alleged he was beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed, forced to take medication, sedated by injection without consent, struck while sedated, sexually assaulted, and deprived of sleep.
He claimed he witnessed the use of attack dogs against other Guantanamo detainees.
When his conviction was set aside by the US Court of Military Commission in 2015, Hicks recounted his time at the notorious prison camp from 2002 to 2007.
'It is just unfortunate that because of politics, I was subjected to five and a half years of physical and psychological torture that I will now live with always,' he said.
He insisted that government should be responsible for his medical expenses, alleging his incarceration caused long-term health issues.
'It is due to the torture – being kept in freezing conditions, small rooms for years,' he said.
Problems continued to plague Hicks after his release from Guantanamo and his return to Australia.
It was widely reported that he severed contact with ex-partner Jodie Sparrow, from whom he separated in 1996, and his children, Bonnie and Terry
But in a 2007 interview with Woman's Day, Ms Sparrow insisted she was 'mates' with her ex and said they 'would always be close... no matter what people want to think.'
Daily Mail understands Hicks is now a grandfather, with both his children now parents, but public records show his son Terry does not uses his father's surname.
Hicks' father said he was unsure whether his son remains in contact with Bonnie, Terry, or his grandchildren.
'I don't know if he sees them,' he admitted.
Hicks briefly moved to Sydney where he married his girlfriend, human rights advocate Aloysia Brooks, in 2009, reportedly living in Abbotsford and working for a landscape gardening business.
He returned to Adelaide when the marriage ended, and in 2017, an assault charge against a former partner in Craigmore was withdrawn at Elizabeth Magistrates Court.
His father - who split from Hicks' mother Susan when he was nine - told the Daily Mail his son lives 'in Modbury somewhere' in Adelaide's north, but didn't have his address.
He said Hicks 'has never spoken to the media and never will', although his son did give one press conference in 2015 when his sentence was overturned.
In 2012, the US Court of Appeals found the 2006 law under which David was convicted could not be applied retrospectively.
The US Court of Military Commission Review vacated his sentence and set aside his guilty plea on February 18, 2015.