(I wish we could get off this damn page! Who stretched the thread?)
HOORAY! New page!
Habib supporters focus on freeing Hicks
January 29, 2005 - 3:09PM/the AGE
Supporters of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib welcomed his release but vowed to keep fighting until Australia's other US prisoner of war, David Hicks, joined him on home soil.
"One down, one to come!" declared Raul Bassi, Justice for Hicks and Habib Campaign organiser, as a few dozen supporters gathered at a park in Mr Habib's former western Sydney neighbourhood.
"We will keep fighting for the freedom of Hicks now."
Mr Bassi said he had been unable to contact Mr Habib or his family since his clandestine arrival in Australia on Friday afternoon after more than three years in the controversial US prison.
And despite their cause, campaign organisers had also been unable to get in touch with Mr Habib's Australian lawyer, Stephen Hopper, to get some clue of his whereabouts.
Still, joined by an array of political groups including the Greens, Mr Bassi said he would support Mr Habib if he tried to get compensation for being detained without charge.
"No Australian citizen deserves to have that torture and trauma put on him," Greens senator Kerry Nettle told the gathering in Bankstown's Paul Keating Park.
"The Australian government has absolutely failed to stand up for the rights of Mamdouh Habib."
Justice Action Group spokesman Brett Collins called for the Australian government to demand transparency in the way the prisoners were treated at Guantanamo Bay.
"There is no justification for locking the community out of these prisons," he said.
Keysar Trad, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association of NSW, asked for supporters and media to respect the privacy of the Habib family so it could "get to know itself again".
"We have to give this family time to pick up the pieces," he said.
Supporters wrote welcoming messages to Mr Habib in a large card supplied by campaign organisers, although it was unclear how the card would be passed on to its intended recipient.
Supporters were also urged to sign a letter to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock asking for an apology to Mr Habib - and an undertaking to stop tracking his activities.
"We simply ask that you show some common decency and leave the man alone," the letter said.
"Stop suggesting that you will direct some special surveillance team, or that you may try to block his normal freedom of speech."
But such an undertaking seemed unlikely. Even the NSW Labor government said the state's police would help the federal government in any way it could.
"We will cooperate with commonwealth police but it is not a matter that I will direct or give a public account of," Premier Bob Carr told reporters on the campaign trail for new federal Labor leader Kim Beazley.
"The police have got responsibilities and they will fulfil them with a high level of cooperation from the commonwealth police."
Mr Beazley took a different approach, saying Labor had always said Mr Habib should be freed if no charges were brought against him.
"For the time that he was incarcerated the Labor party took this firm position: charge him or release him," he said.
"We took that point of view and it now seems the Americans have also taken that point of view."
© 2005 AAP
... And maybe Oz taxpayers should sue the US government, too? For the cost of the charter jet to return its prisoner to his home.
:wink:
... & apparently our government met the US requirement that Mr Habib not fly over US air space ... though he was not shackled, as requested. We are so obliging!
Habib may not reveal ordeal publicly
January 31, 2005 - 8:59AM/the AGE
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib may never talk publicly about his ordeal, his lawyer said.
Mr Habib arrived back in Australia on Friday after being released without charge from the United States military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
His legal team on Sunday said he had developed emotional and psychological problems during his imprisonment.
Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, on Monday said Mr Habib may choose not to speak about his ordeal publicly.
"We'll be looking at getting all the information from him first, talking to him about it at length, seeing what Mr Habib wants to do," Mr Hopper told the Nine network.
"He may want to talk about it, he may not want to talk about it publicly, he may want his representatives to talk about it on his behalf.
"We don't know these things yet. He's not much more than two days off the plane, he needs time to settle into his family and get back on a normal footing there before he starts looking at all these other things."
Mr Habib had "chronic physical and psychological problems", he said.
"We're addressing those, that's a priority for us ... to get him well and to make sure he'll be able to function as a normal human being," Mr Hopper said.
"He's got some physiological problems due to torture and due to abuse, he certainly has suffered.
"We have got some medical documentation from the Americans about things he suffered.
"We don't want to elaborate any further on that at the moment until we get a proper independent assessment of his health."
While the government said it would keep Mr Habib under surveillance, Mr Hopper said a close eye would also be kept on the government's actions.
"We'll keep the federal government under surveillance, we'll make sure that they follow the law, we'll watch every one of their public statements," he said.
"If they breach any Australian laws, we'll seek to prosecute."
`
Interesting: Today the Australian Prime Minister was in Singapore, pleading for clemency for a convicted (Oz) drug smuggler who could be facing death row soon. Yet not a peep for 3 whole years while another Australian citizen (Habib) was incarcerated & tortured by our closest ally at Guantanamo Bay ... Apparently some Oz citizens are more worthy of representation from their government than others ...
The other Australian detained at Guantanamo Bay - & still there:
Hicks has right to challenge detention
February 1, 2005 - 2:48PM/the AGE
A United States court has ruled that Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks has the constitutional right to challenge his detention in Guantanamo Bay.
District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green today said the detention of Guantanamo Bay inmates violated the prisoners' rights to due process of law under the fifth amendment to the US Constitution.
In a ruling affecting 11 inmates including Hicks, she also said the military tribunals designed to try the detainees were unconstitutional.
The judgment was a blow to the US Bush administration but will have little immediate impact on Hicks, with his lawyers conceding a lengthy appeal process is likely which could leave Hicks at Guantanamo Bay for years. ... <continued>
<complete article>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/War-on-Terror/Hicks-has-right-to-challenge-detention/2005/02/01/1107228679492.html
Australian media today were/are full of reports like that - seems, your PM can't read them.
... Mr Toner says Mr Habib should be allowed to go about his business without being watched.
"Everybody seems to be saying, all the agencies at least, and the Opposition seem to be saying that he's going to be kept under surveillance. Why?" Mr Toner said. ...
Walter
The opposition Labor Party (ALP) has been very disappointing on this. The newly appointed leader, Kim Beazley, seems to be having it both ways: The ALP had consistently said that Habib should be released unless the US had grounds to prosecute. Now that he has been released, Beazley is saying that it won't support Habib's cause further, so as not to make him a "hero". I would have thought that he was more of a victim, myself.
The ALP appears to be proceeding very cautiously to avoid controversy & an electorally unpopular position. Unfortunately, this appears to be a pragmatic endorsement of the Liberal's & the US position. The Greens appear the only political party prepared to support Mr Habib's rights.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Australian media today were/are full of reports like that - seems, your PM can't read them.
Our Prime Minister (& Attorney-General) will NEVER do anything to discredit the US. It doesn't matter whether the US is right or wrong ...
I know - 'not reading' is one of the qualifications for such.
<sigh> It's very dispiriting on such an important matter of principle, Walter. And now to have an appeasing opposition leader, too ... Quite depressing, actually.
Habib sells story as threats of legal action fly
February 7, 2005 - 11:00AM/Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney man Mamdouh Habib may take legal action against the Australian government for turning its back on him while he was a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, his Australian lawyer said today.
Prime Minister John Howard today would not rule out charges against Mr Habib under Australian law.
Responding to the comments, Mr Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper said the Australian government's treatment of his client had been criminal.
Mr Habib - who has sold his story to the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program - was released without charge from the United States' Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba last week and arrived home in Sydney on January 28.
He was detained by the US for more than three years as a suspected terrorist, but was not charged.
Asked if Mr Habib would be charged under Australian law, Mr Howard told 2GB: "I'm not foreshadowing that, but equally I am careful not to rule that out.
"The reason that he has not been charged, as yet, under Australian law is that some of the offences, or the activities rather that he's alleged to have undertaken, were not criminal at the time they were undertaken, although similar activities are now crimes under Australian law," he said.
Mr Habib has had his passport cancelled on the basis of an adverse security assessment, a spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said last week.
ASIO has issued adverse security findings resulting in the cancellation or denial of the passports of at least 20 people seeking to leave the country.
Mr Hopper has applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for the passport's return.
He said US authorities listened in on private conferences between his client and lawyer Joe Margulies at Guantanamo Bay.
"One thing he has asked me to say, on the occasions that he was visited by our American lawyer in Guantanamo Bay, he was then taken and interrogated by the US authorities and they raised issues with him that he had discussed confidentially with his lawyer," Mr Hopper said.
"The American authorities were obviously listening in to private conferences and not respecting client-lawyer privilege as they said they would do."
Mr Hopper said the Americans then used the information said in the conferences to get at Mr Habib psychologically.
"Obviously this is of concern to other people in Guantanamo Bay and another Australian called David Hicks," Mr Hopper said.
"How could David Hicks expect to get a fair trial if the American authorities are eavesdropping on client lawyer conversations?"
Mr Habib was released without charge from the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba last week and arrived home in Sydney on January 28.
He was detained by the US for more than three years as a suspected terrorist, but was not charged.
AAP
My suggestion for his first book to contribute to.....
Habibs find their house ransacked
By Tom Allard and Cynthia Banham
February 8, 2005/Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney home of the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was ransacked over the weekend after a mysterious break-in while he and his family were staying with friends.
The burglary came as the Prime Minister, John Howard, said Mr Habib might still be charged for unspecified offences even though he was released last month without charge after more than three years in detention at the notorious US military prison.
During that time his case was investigated, listed to go before a US military tribunal and then withdrawn before his release.
Since his return home, Mr Habib has moved regularly, being spotted last week at Palm Beach with supporters. He has made no media comment after selling his story to Nine Network's 60 Minutes program.
NSW police are investigating the break and enter at Mr Habib's Guildford home, and are treating it as a straightforward burglary.
"The owners contacted police after they found their home in Guildford Road had been broken into and several rooms disturbed," a police spokeswoman said. "[We] believe the home was entered some time between 2pm on Saturday and 12.30 today [yesterday]."
The Federal Government says Mr Habib is still considered "of security interest" because of his alleged links to al-Qaeda.
A spokeswoman for ASIO, which is believed to have Mr Habib under surveillance, said it was not responsible for the break-in.
Mr Howard said yesterday that he was not foreshadowing the imminent charging of Mr Habib, but said "equally, I'm careful not to rule it out". He said Mr Habib would not be granted compensation for his time spent in the US prison in Cuba and confirmed that his passport had been cancelled.
Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, says his client is innocent and has not ruled out taking legal action against the Australian Government for alleged torture while Mr Habib was in US custody.
While under ASIO surveillance?
Last Update: Tuesday, February 8, 2005. 11:29am (AEDT)
Police deny telling the media where Mamdouh Habib lives.
Police deny releasing Habib's address
New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney denies police released information about the location former Guantanamo bay detainee Mamdouh Habib's Sydney home.
Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, says his client is being forced to move because a police officer told the media where the family lived.
A break-in at the house in Guildford in western Sydney is also being investigated.
Commissioner Moroney says Mr Habib is entitled to privacy.
"He is a citizen of this state; he is entitled like any citizen to privacy, irrespective of other issues," he said.
"This break-and-enter is being the subject of an investigation as he and the community would expect."
A spokesman for Police Minister Carl Scully says he will wait to hear from Mr Hopper in writing before commenting.
Compensation
Mr Hopper says he will seek compensation from the New South Wales Government for Mr Habib.
"They've been trying very carefully to keep their location private," Mr Hopper said.
"We'll be seeking compensation from the New South Wales Government to assist them to move.
"We'll also be laying a complaint with the Ombudsman about the behaviour of New South Wales police officers breaching the privacy of my clients."
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says Mr Habib's lawyer should raise his concerns with the Police Integrity Commission (PIC).
"I'm not inviting them to do anything - I'm just pointing out that under the law of New South Wales, if you've got a complaint about the behaviour of the police, you go to the Police Integrity Commission," Mr Carr said.
Commissioner Moroney has denied the allegation.
"I'm not aware of the existence of any complaint at all and on the advice that I have at this stage, I don't necessarily subscribe to that complaint," he said.
This is getting quite unpleasant. Harrassment?
Maybe Habib will be happier when he is dead. Perhaps he can still strap himself into a bomb and blow up something there in Australia.
I still do not understand the sympathy Habib has garnered.
