Bring David Hicks home (from Guantanamo) before Christmas!

So, two more years, in an Australian jail?

I find this quite bizarre:

...To finalise his plea, Hicks must convince the judge, Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, that he knowingly lent his services to an international terrorist group engaged in an armed conflict with the United States. ...

He has to convince the judge? Huh?

Shouldn't it be the other way around?: The prosecution provides evidence to prove their case against him?

Weird. :

Last Update: Friday, March 30, 2007. 11:39pm (AEST)

Hicks deal limits prison term to 7 years

Australian Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks has signed a plea agreement that limits his sentence for supporting terrorism against the United States to seven years in prison, the military tribunal judge said.

But it was unclear whether that would include the five years that Hicks has already been held at the US prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects.

Appearing at the US military's war crimes tribunal court at Guantanamo on Friday, Hicks acknowledged that he trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and fought with its forces against US allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee to Pakistan.

He denied having any advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks.

The 31-year-old from Adelaide pleaded guilty on Monday to providing material support for terrorism.

Hicks will serve his prison term in Australia.

He is the first person to be convicted in revised military tribunals created by the US Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that President George W Bush authorised to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.

Rights groups and foreign governments have long condemned the prison at the US naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba for what they say is abuse of prisoners' rights.

But Washington has argued the camp is necessary to hold detainees in the war on terrorism it declared after the September 11 attacks more than five years ago.

At the tribunal, the military accused Hicks of training with Al Qaeda, taking up arms to join the Taliban and fighting US forces and their allies in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

Hicks is not accused of actually shooting anyone. A convert to Islam who has since abandoned the faith, he sold his gun to raise cab fare and was captured trying to flee to Pakistan by taxi in December 2001.

To finalise his plea, Hicks must convince the judge, Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, that he knowingly lent his services to an international terrorist group engaged in an armed conflict with the United States. ... <cont>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1886311.htm

Last Update: Saturday, March 31, 2007. 10:48am (AEST)


Hicks will serve the sentence in Australia and the United States must send him home by May 29. (Reuters)

Hicks gets nine-month sentence

A US military tribunal has sentenced confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks to seven years in jail but he will only have to serve nine months.

The tribunal judge accepted Hicks's guilty plea as part of an agreement that limited his sentence to seven years in prison, in addition to the five years he has been held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay.

The deal allowed all but nine months of the sentence to be be suspended.

Hicks will serve the sentence in Australia and the United States must send him home by May 29.


Apology

Hours after Hicks was formally convicted of supporting terrorism, his lawyer, Major Michael Mori, told a panel of military officers Hicks deserved lenient punishment as he posed no threat and was sorry for his actions.

"David owes apologies to many people," Major Mori said, reading a statement on behalf of Hicks.

"First and foremost, David wants to apologise to his family. He wants to apologise to Australia and he wants to apologise to the United States."

Major Mori says Hicks was a naive young man looking for battlefield experience after having been rejected for military service in Australia due to his only having an eighth grade education.

Major Mori called his client a mere "wannabe" soldier whose heart was not in Al Qaeda but who sought out training where he could "because he didn't have an education to be a real soldier".

Recounting how Hicks fled from advancing Northern Alliance forces for three days, Major Mori said, "the 'wannabe' finally got a real taste of it and he ran away".

Major Mori suggested a sentence of one year and eight months, given Hicks has spent more than five years at the Guantanamo detention camp, had cooperated with US interrogations, admitted guilt and behaved well as an inmate.

Lead prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Chenail had told the tribunal Hicks had knowingly sought out an organisation bent on attacking the United States and acquired dangerous skills.

The prosecutor, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Chenail, says Hicks freely joined a band of killers who slaughtered innocents.

"We are face to face with the enemy," he said.


First conviction

Hicks, who has become the first war crimes convict among the hundreds of foreign captives held for years at the Guantanamo prison camp, had pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism in an agreement with US military prosecutors.

Hicks, originally from Adelaide in South Australia, acknowledged he trained with Al Qaeda, fought against US allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee by taxi to Pakistan.

The 31-year-old denied having advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks in New York.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says the Federal Government will not commute the sentence to be imposed on Hicks.

Mr Downer told ABC Radio's AM program that the Government will support whatever sentence is handed down.

"We would not the commute the sentence, the sentence would be carried out fully," he said.

"I say that with a bit of passion because we take a very strong stand against terrorism.

"I have seen the consequences on the ground in Bali and our Australian embassies for Australia's terrorism attacks and if any Australian gets involved in terrorist activities they get no sympathy from us."

Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and was among the first prisoners the United States sent to Guantanamo a month later.

Washington considers them dangerous and unlawful "enemy combatants" who must be detained in the war against terrorism.

Rights groups and foreign governments have condemned the prison at the US naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba for what they say is abuse of prisoners' rights.

- ABC/Reuters


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1886424.htm

The Hicks case has been in the news a lot lately. It enraged me that they fired his lawyers - except for the military one. They wanted them to sign an agreement to the new terms of prosecution and they new terms weren't fully written yet!

The deal allowed all but nine months of the sentence to be be suspended.


That's a relief for all concerned parties.

Not so sure about the eighth grade education being a block for induction into our military though.

Yep, just before this hearing, where he (David Hicks) had to make a decision on how to plead.

Bahstids.

I don't necessarily think "truth" was an important prerequisite of the plea bargaining process, Builder. :wink:

There were certain things that had to be said to get the desired outcome.

... Like he was not tortured at Guantanamo at all!

Oh yeah?

Oh, whatever it takes!

I'm surprised that he wasn't required to say that GWB, Cheney & co are men of great vision, who've brought freedom & civilization to Iraq & Afghanistan!

But what great timing for his release! (Around Christmas of this year.) Isn't there an Australian election anticipated to be around a month before? :wink:
(BTW, he's had to agree that he will not make any statements to the press in his 9 months in an Oz jail.)

Details and Contradictions in the David Hicks Gag Order

As part of the plea bargain that will get David Hicks out of an Australian jail in anywhere from two to seven years, Hicks had to sign a gag order at Guantanamo in which, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented Hicks in the past, Hicks agrees to not speak to the media for one year after his release and to state that he has never been mistreated while at Guantánamo. He also has to agree that his detention was lawful pursuant to law of armed conflict.

Furthermore, he was forced to give up the right to sue over his treatment in the future, and will cooperate with investigators should the need arise. He is forbidden from profiting from his story by, for instance, publishing a book or selling movie rights.

Some portions of the gag order are plainly ridiculous, and contradicted by earlier statements. On December 10, 2004, Hicks filed an affidavit with the Adjutant General stating among other things:

- I have been beaten before, after, and during interrogations….
- I have been menaced and threatened, directly and indirectly, with firearms and other weapons before and during interrogations….
- I have been beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed...
- I have been in the company of other detainees who were beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed. At one point, a group of detainees, including myself, were subjected to being randomly hit over a eight hour session while handcuffed and blindfolded…...........



Complete Mother Jones article here



Never tortured...yeah, right.

American justice on trial as Hicks has day in court
Mark Coultan, Guantanamo Bay
March 31, 2007/the AGE


The eye of the storm: The military commissions building at Guantanamo Bay, where David Hicks faced the military tribunal.
Photo: AP

EVEN with a partial victory under the Pentagon's belt, Defence Secretary Robert Gates believes President George Bush's war crimes court in Guantanamo lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

The US is poised to win its first conviction at its first war crimes tribunal since World War II with a formal, detailed guilty plea expected overnight from David Hicks.

Hicks' Affidavit re practices at Guantanamo:


http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/David-Hicks-affidavit/2004/12/10/1102625527396.html

Yeah, truth rarely gets an airing these days. Sad, really. Truth, Justice and the American Way. Just meaningless words now, apparently.



All of which should have happened about five years ago. The Brits got all their low-risk detainees home way back then.




I'm hoping he still has the strength and mental capacity to tell us all about that hellhole. If America wants to hold itself up as the shining light of liberal republican democracy, they don't really know the first step towards that goal.



Then everyone would know he is lying, Msolga.



Like I've said before, li'l Johnny Howler's tune changed rather abruptly when the CheneyDude came for a visit. Why didn't they just use the telephone?



I'm not so sure he could enlighten us at all really. We all know how goddamned nasty this admin has become. If they could possibly stoop any lower, it would surprise me.

Hicks to serve nine months' jail
March 31, 2007 - 1:02PM/SMH


David Hicks will be out of jail on New Year's Eve after an extraordinarily lenient plea bargain agreement meant that whatever sentence he got, he would only serve nine months of it in jail.

The Military Commission panel - made up of serving US officers - gave him the maximum possible sentence of seven years. Even that was a reduction on the statutory maximum of life imprisonment.

But the pre-trial agreement meant that six years and three months will be suspended. This means that he will be released on the last day of the year, and as long as he doesnt violate the terms of his agreement, he will stay out of jail.

The pre-trial agreement appears to have been designed with the Australian political calendar in mind.

As well as keeping Hicks in jail until after the election, due by the end of this year, Hicks also had to agree to not talk to the media for one year.

And if he talks to the media after that date, any proceeds he might collect will be forfeited to the Australian Government.

Under the plea agreement, he will return to Australia within two months, and is expected to serve out his term in a South Australian jail.

While the agreement might be politically convenient for the Howard Government, it will create problems for the Bush Administration. It appears to be a large thank you to the Howard Government for their support on the war on terror.

The effective sentence of nine months contrasts with the statements of the chief prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis who said earlier this week that his benchmark for Hicks crime of material support for terrorism was 20 years.

The American Taliban John Walker Lindh, who was also captured in Afghanistan at about the same time as Hicks, agreed to a plea bargain of 20 years in jail.

The Americans insisted that the time Hicks had already spent in Guantanamo Bay not be counted in the calculations of his sentence, because the United States insists that can hold enemy combatants for as long as hostilities continue.


Bittersweet victory

Hicks' father said the news was a bittersweet victory and that he should have had a fair trial.

"It's a lot better than 12 years or seven or two or whatever they were touting throughout the night,'' Mr Hicks said.

"(But) it's a real shame David had to go through this way to get released when he should have had the the Australian government standing up for Australia's citizens' rights."

Mr Hicks said his son was forced to undergo a plea-bargain and his case was never properly tested in court.

"Nobody will ever know what the evidence was," he said.


Labor reaction

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said a Labor government would honour the sentence imposed on Hicks and keep him in an Australian jail for his full nine-month term.

Mr Rudd said the custodial process is controlled by legislation for prisoner transfers from the United States.

Both the government and the alternative government were bound by Australian law, in this case the International prisoners Transfer Agreement Act 1997.

"The stipulations within it are quite clear. It underpins the inter-governmental agreement which the Australian government has entered with the United States," he told reporters.

"As an alternative government our responsibility is to honour the law and that is what we propose to do."


'Political farce'

Greens leader Bob Brown claimed the nine months sentence was a political farce.

"This is more about saving Mr Howard's political hide than about justice for Hicks," he said in a statement.

"It is clearly a political fix arranged between Mr Howard and the Bush administration to shut up Hicks until after the election in November.

"However the minute Hicks arrives in Australia, our legitimate justice system kicks into action. It may hold some nasty shocks for the Howard government which has endorsed this illegal process at Guantanamo Bay.''


Deal criticised

The plea deal agreement has drawn criticism from civil liberties and human rights lawyers monitoring the trial.

They were especially critical of the order forbidding Hicks from protesting any mistreatment, saying such a requirement would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court.

"If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Ben Wizner, staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The agreement says he wasn't mistreated. Why aren't we allowed to judge for ourselves?" ..................


http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hicks-to-serve-nine-months-jail/2007/03/31/1174761797302.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

You know, I'm getting the feeling that this "issue" is not exactly over. :wink:

Not by a long shot.

It's a blot and a curse on the good name of Americans everywhere, and some of them actually care about it.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.forums&mode=display&itemID=3576

Guantanamo Bay has become not only a symbol of the U.S. government's hypocrisy and dishonesty - or "disassembling," as President Bush might put it - around the war on terror. The prison camp has become one of the more egregious examples of the cost of unaccountable power.

Human rights groups have long documented the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo, including desecration of the Quran. (The International Committee of the Red Cross issued credible reports in 2002 and 2003 on mistreatment of the Islamic holy book, which last week even the Pentagon admitted.)

The 540 prisoners at the facility have been held incommunicado, denied access to legal counsel, and, in fact, denied the most basic aspects of legal process. The Bush administration has given mutually contradictory rationalizations for its treatment of prisoners there, claiming on the one hand that those incarcerated are effectively prisoners of war and in other circumstances that they are terrorist criminals. Yet the administration has refused to honor either the Geneva Conventions for treatment of POWs or the rights granted the accused under U.S. criminal law.

Defenders of Guantanamo and the policies it represents are quick to point out that our treatment of prisoners is far better than that meted out by the U.S.'s terrorist enemies - or the "gulag" of the former Soviet Union, for that matter. Fair enough. But if the U.S. is to continue to claim a place as a world leader for human rights, our standards must be infinitely higher and conform to or surpass international norms. We must not be satisfied with merely being "better" than al Qaeda or Stalin.

Indeed, Builder.

All that power & it comes to this!
What a terrible disservice this US government has done to the standing of the US in the world, for people everywhere who were hoping for far better than Iraq, and, and .... What a wasted opportunity!

On that gag on David Hicks covering a year after his release:

They may be able to gag him, but not the lawyers who witnessed this fiasco, nor those who have been following the process of US military "justice" in this case, nor his father who knows the whole story, nor Australian politicians like Bob Brown of the Greens, nor GetUp, nor the liberal & progressive media in Oz & elsewhere, nor all those participants in all those little those blogs all over the place .....

You just can't keep the truth of the situation under wraps like that. As John Howard & his government of Australia are about to find out ... & as this US government should know already, from experience.

I never looked at it that way before.

With all that wealth and power, this is all they can come up with?




Where are the thinkers? Where are the real Americans?

Sigh.

They're there.

They definitely exist, I have absolutely no doubt about that. (Check the political threads here for evidence of that.)

Check out the records for the many civil rights objections to Guantanamo & also to the Iraq "war" in the NYT & in the records of US parliamentary debates.
They definitely exist & I think they're gaining power & credibility again. But for quite a time, under this current administration, they have been gazumped, despite their very best efforts.

Oh really? In what capacity do you make this assertion? "Infinitely higher..." -- what the hell does that mean? Mere hyperbole I think.

I have the impression you are from Australia, not the U.S. True?

On what basis do you believe Mr. Hicks has been done an injustice? Do you believe the circumstances of his capture were fabricated? Do you believe the Military Tribunal did not hear evidence and render a just verdict?

I hesitated to interrupt this two or three way mutually supportive conversation, but I was getting concerned about all the hyperventillation - someone might faint.

"As part of his plea deal, Hicks has agreed not to speak to the media for a year, not to receive any money for his story and not to sue the US government."

One could get some ideas, don't you, George?