SYDNEY – Australian prosecutors say they have begun legal action to seize book profits from David Hicks, the first inmate at the US Guantánamo Bay military prison convicted of terrorism offences.
Mr Hicks's book, Guantánamo, My Journey, was published last year by Random House and is based on his time at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba from 2001 to 2007. Under Australian law, a person cannot benefit financiially from a crime.
A spokeswoman for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions said yesterday that Mr Hicks had been served orders on Wednesday and that the case was set for August 3rd in the New South Wales state Supreme Court.
Mr Hicks’s book has reportedly sold 30,000 copies. As a rule of thumb, an author can expect about 10 per cent of sales, with Hicks’s book having a recommended price of A$49.95 (€38).
Mr Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and spent five years in Guantánamo before pleading guilty to supporting terrorism and becoming the first person convicted by the war crimes tribunals created by the United States to try non-American captives. – (Reuters)