One-time Gitmo detainee David Hicks is back home in Australia, where he had hoped to sell his story about meeting Osama bin Laden and his eventual capture and detention by the U.S. military. No dice. Although the provision in his plea deal not to sell his story is unenforceable in Australia, the Australian Attorney General says such a sale is barred under Aussie law, according to this press report.
Ruddock said a separate Australian federal law against criminals profiting from crime through media deals will stop the 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner from selling his story about meeting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and his allegations of being tortured during his five years at the Guantanamo prison.
“We would seek to ensure that he would not be able to profit from any story that he sought to tell,” Ruddock told Nine Network television.
The Australian government agreed to let the U.S. charge Hicks because his training with al-Qaida and the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001 did not break any Australian law at the time.
But the government had Hicks in mind when it passed legislation in 2002 that prevents lawbreakers from selling their stories if they have committed offenses that can be tried by a U.S. military commission, established by President Bush’s order in 2001.