Guantanamo inmate's mental health in decline, his lawyer says

Australian Guantanamo inmate's mental health in decline, lawyer says

SYDNEY, Australia -- Australia's sole remaining inmate at Guantanamo Bay is showing signs of increasingly poor mental health, his lawyer said Tuesday after a rare meeting with the prisoner at the U.S. military camp.

David Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner from southern Australia, has been held at the U.S. military facility in Cuba since early 2002. He is awaiting charges under the revised military tribunal system approved by the U.S. Congress late last year.

"Since I saw him early last year ... there has been a deterioration in David's condition," lawyer David McLeod said by telephone after meeting with his client at Guantanamo Bay.

"He shows all the signs of someone who has been kept in isolation for a very long time."

McLeod said Hicks is locked up for 22 hours a day and has only been outside three times since December.

"He has no privacy whatsoever ... his toilet paper is rationed, he hasn't been able to comb his hair since going there because he's not provided with a comb or brush," he said.

"The guards can see into his cell 24 hours a day."

Hicks' family have expressed concern that he may have developed a mental illness during his extended incarceration. Those fears increased when the 31-year-old prisoner refused to accept a telephone call from his father last year -- a rare contact that took months to organize.

They have called for an independent psychiatric review for Hicks, but Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said there is "no suggestion" that Hicks is suffering from a mental illness. (AP)

January 30, 2007