Australia judge limits ex-Guantanamo inmate Hicks

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The only Guantanamo Bay inmate convicted of terrorism offences, Australian David Hicks, will have to obey a curfew and tough restrictions when he is released from jail next week, an Australian court ruled on Friday.

But a separate court said an Indian doctor accused of terrorism offences and barred from the country should have his visa reinstated after he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

A judge in Adelaide, where Hicks is serving out a seven-year jail term ending early on December 29, agreed to a police request for a control order on the man dubbed "Australia's Taliban".

"I'm satisfied that coupled with the defendant's views expressed and his capability and training ... that the defendant is a risk of taking part in a terrorist act," Federal Court magistrate Warren Donald told the court.

He said Hicks would have to obey a midnight to dawn curfew and report to police three times a week upon release. He would not be allowed to leave Australia and any mobile phone card would need police approval.

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.

The former kangaroo skinner admitted training with al Qaeda and meeting Osama bin Laden, who he described as "lovely", according to police evidence given to the court.

Police lawyer Andrew Berger told the Federal Court judge that Hicks took part in four al Qaeda training camps between January and August 2001, writing letters home describing bin Laden as "lovely brother, everything for the cause of Islam".

"This is not a man who was full of hot air," Berger said.

The control order on Hicks is 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 for interviews could be confiscated under Australian law.

Separately, a Federal Court judge in Melbourne upheld a previous appellate court order for the government to reinstate former terrorism suspect Mohammed Haneef's Australian work visa.

Haneef, a hospital doctor, was detained by police for 12 days in July and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization by giving his mobile phone card to a cousin accused of involvement in failed car bomb attacks in the United Kingdom.

The charges were withdrawn, but Haneef was forced to return home to India when the former conservative government refused to give back his work visa.

The new Labor government said it may appeal against the ruling to Australia's peak High Court.