Ex-al Qaeda soldier will vote in Australia

[wakeme2008]

Source: AP

Posted on Wed, May. 16, 2007

Ex-al Qaeda soldier will vote in Australia
By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia --
Unlike most prison inmates, al Qaeda soldier David Hicks will be required to vote in Australia's elections later this year after he returns from Guantánamo Bay to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home, a lawyer said Wednesday.

Hicks will be sent to a maximum-security prison in his hometown of Adelaide when he arrives by chartered jet from the U.S. military prison in Cuba as early as next week.

He is set to be released from prison on Dec. 31 at the expiration of a nine-month sentence agreed to in a plea deal struck with a U.S. military commission in Cuba in March, when he pleaded guilty to supporting al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

But because Hicks will be an anomaly in Australia's penal system, he will be required to vote at the next federal election while virtually all of his fellow inmates are barred, lawyer Phil Lynch said.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/108535.html