How Ashes triumph could save the 'last Brit' in Guantanamo

[muriel_volestrangler]

Has this been reported in Australia?

Chance remark about cricket brings hope of release for 'abused' David Hicks
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That Hicks has a right to British nationality was discovered only because his American military defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, takes an interest in cricket. On a visit to his client a few days after England's cliff-hanging Ashes victory, he asked him how he felt about his side's defeat.

'He told me he'd never felt very partisan about the Ashes,' Mori said last week, 'and wouldn't much mind if England took the series - because his mum had never claimed Aussie nationality and still carried a UK passport. My jaw hit the floor. I asked him, "Do you realise that may mean you're legally a Brit?" We both knew that the implications of that could be stunning.'
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Hicks's mother - who has asked not to be named - was born in Croydon in 1949 and his grandparents served in the British forces during the Second World War. Until 2002 only children of British fathers could apply to register as UK nationals, but the law was changed. Hicks did not know of the change - he was already at Guantanamo.

Major Mori submitted Hicks's application at the British embassy in Washington on 16 September. But despite the urgency of his situation - his trial is set to begin on or before 20 October - the government has yet to respond.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577749,00.html