[JURIST] Australian citizen and former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks [JURIST news archive] made a court appearance on Tuesday in Adelaide on assault charges against his partner. Hicks was accused [Australian report] of assaulting his partner in September of last year and did not take a plea at the proceedings. It seems he denies the incident occurred as he told reporters gathered at the courthouse that he came to visit his father whom he claimed worked there. His stepmother also claimed his innocence saying that he was “not guilty of anything. Hick’s case has been adjourned until February 28.

Hicks filed a motion [JURIST report] to dismiss his conviction in the US Court of Military Commission Review in 2014 after pleading guilty in 2007 to providing material support to terrorism. Hicks was captured in Afghanistan by northern alliance forces shortly after September 11, 2011, and then sold to the US military and brought to the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay the day that it opened. Following his guilty plea, Hicks was transferred to Australia in May 2007 to serve the remainder of his prison sentence at a maximum security prison near his hometown of Adelaide, South Australia, and was released [JURIST reports] in December 2007, though he remains under a suspended sentence. A control order against him was relaxed in February 2008 and was ultimately removed [JURIST reports] in December 2008. Hicks has sold approximately 30,000 copies of his book, Guantanamo, My Journey, which chronicles his time at Guantanamo and in the Australian prison. In 2011 the New South Wales Supreme Court froze all assets arising out of the sale of the book, but those proceedings were later dropped. Also in 2011 Hicks filed an appeal [JURIST report] with the UN Human Rights Committee complaining of multiple violations of international law stemming from his five-year incarceration at Guantanamo.