AUSTRALIAN terror suspect David Hicks occupied himself in jail by killing mice, a report said today.
Britain's Observer newspaper reported Hicks - who is detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, awaiting a US military commission - went to desperate measures to maintain his sanity.
Fellow inmate Shafiq Rasul, who has been returned to England, told the newspaper Adelaide-born Hicks occupied his mind all day by catching and killing mice. (Former prisoners allege brutality)
He said more than a year ago, Hicks renounced Islam and shaved off his beard, no longer answering the regular call to prayer.
"He's just a little guy with a very deep voice," Rasul said. "If you met him you'd think he was the typical kind of Aussie you might see drinking Fosters in a bar."
Rasul said Hicks was housed in a white-walled, sound-absorbent cell in solitary confinement with a guard permanently stationed outside his door. He said interrogators had taken to using a formal system of rewards to get cooperation.
But the best-selling novels they offered as incentives usually had pages torn out, which the censor deemed too subversive or exciting. Hicks, 28, was captured by the US among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.
His family has been meeting this week with his US military lawyer Major Michael Mori and tonight, his father, Terry Hicks, wife Bev and Maj Mori will all attend the screening of a new film about Hicks, which is to be released in Australia and the United States.
Terry Hicks says the film will show "David is not the demon he has been made out to be". The documentary, The President Versus David Hicks, attempts to trace David's path in the lead-up to him being captured by the US among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.
"It's something to make the public aware that David is not what they're saying, the government have demonised him from the start," Terry Hicks said today. .....