Controls for Australian ex-Guantanamo inmate: media

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's new Labor government has backed tough restrictions on former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks when the convicted terrorism supporter is released from jail in weeks, local media said on Tuesday.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland had given police approval to ask courts for a control order on Hicks, dubbed "Australia's Taliban", when he is freed from jail in Adelaide at the end of the month, Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported.

Hicks, 32, was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and spent five years in Guantanamo before becoming the first person to be sentenced under the alternate war crimes tribunals created by the Bush administration to try non-American captives.

At his trial, the former kangaroo skinner admitted training with al Qaeda and meeting Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the September 11 airline attacks in the United States.

He denied advance knowledge of the attacks, but said he learned guerrilla ambush and kidnap skills before briefly fighting against U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Hicks pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism under a deal that had him sent home in May to complete a seven-year jail term ending early on December 29, six years after his capture.

The Labor government was critical in opposition of previous conservative government support for the U.S. military trial process and the lengthy jail term served by Hicks without charge.

A spokesman for McClelland said for security reasons he could not confirm the new government's backing for a control order on Hicks, placing him under a curfew between midnight and 5am and requiring him to report to police up to three times a week.

"We're not saying any progress has occurred towards that at all. In short, the media speculation in well out in front of what has been publicly confirmed by the government," he said.

If approved by a judge, a control order on Hicks would be only the second under new anti-terrorism laws introduced after the September 11 attacks.

The first was against Melbourne terror suspect Jack "Jihad" Thomas, a former taxi driver found guilty, then exonerated, and then ordered to face trial again last year on charges of accepting money from al Qaeda.

Under the plea bargain with U.S. military authorities, Hicks agreed to a gag order barring him from talking about his experiences for a year, ending on March 26, while any money offered could be confiscated under Australian law.

His lawyer David McLeod said police had prepared a brief for Attorney-General McClelland requesting a control order while Hicks began studying ecology or zoology.

"He is currently considering whether or not to consent to it," McLeod told local papers.

"He is pretty anxious about being released," he said. "Efforts are currently under way to achieve his release with a minimum of fuss."

(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)