WASHINGTON, July 29 (AFP) - The US military lawyer for an Australian man detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba said Thursday the Pentagon had decided David Hicks will be brought before a military commission late next month.
The United States charged Hicks, a detainee at the Guantanamo 'war on terror' detention camp, on June 10 with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
US Marine Corps defense counsel Major Michael Dante Mori told AFP the trial was set for the week beginning August 23.
"I've heard that's the week when the initial commission hearing would occur," he said.
Hicks is the third detainee at Guantanamo to be sent for hearing before a military commission.
Mori said it was difficult to predict how the hearing would proceed.
"The big question is, will there be sufficient resources and access to other detainees?" he said.
The Pentagon alleges Hicks returned to Afghanistan to fight against US and other coalition forces after seeing television news coverage in Pakistan of the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
He was captured by US troops in Afghanistan in December of 2001 and charged last month after more than two years in detention, including time spent in solitary confinement.
Following talks with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in Washington on June 3, President George W. Bush promised a full investigation into allegations that Hicks and another Australian detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Mamdouh Habib, had been abused.