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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia was refused permission to send an independent psychiatrist to Guantanamo Bay to assess the lone Australian prisoner at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba, a senior Foreign Department official said Thursday.
Rod Smith told a Senate committee inquiry that Australia's embassy in Washington wrote to the Pentagon on Dec. 5 to request an independent psychiatric assessment of David Hicks on behalf of his lawyers and family. Failing that, Australia wanted an assessment by Guantanamo medical staff.
Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner who converted to Islam and is accused of fighting for the Taliban, has been held at Guantanamo for five years and his attorneys and family say he may have developed mental illness during his extended incarceration.
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