About The Author

Leigh Sales is the ABC's National Security Correspondent. She visited Guantanamo Bay twice during her recent four-year posting as the network's Washington correspondent. In 2005, she won a prestigious Walkley Award, Australia's most prestigious journalism prize, for her coverage of the Guantanamo military commissions and was nominated again in 2006 for her reporting of Hurricane Katrina.

 

She also reported extensively on the two key Australian issues of her term in Washington, the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the detention of Australians, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, at Guantanamo Bay.

 

Leigh is well known to ABC viewers and listeners for her reporting on a range of radio and television news and current affairs programs.
 
Prior to her stint in Washington, Leigh worked for the ABC in Australia, notably as NSW Political Reporter from 1997 to 2000.   She has also been a frequent fill in anchor of news and current affairs programs, and co-hosted the broadcast of the 75 th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, live from Turkey in 2001.
 
Leigh also writes regularly for The Diplomat, Australia's only news magazine specialising in foreign affairs.   Before joining the ABC, she worked for Channel Nine in Brisbane.
 
Leigh has a Masters degree in International Relations and a Bachelors degree in Journalism.  Her first book, "Detainee 002: the Case of David Hicks", is published by Melbourne University Publishing.