david hicks sentenced to 7 years in jail by fake judges in sham court after being imprisoned for 5 years without ever being charged for a crime

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GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo formally convicted Australian David Hicks on Friday on a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

The tribunal's judge accepted Hicks' guilty plea as part of an agreement that limits his sentence to seven years, in addition to the five years he has already been detained at the Guantanamo prison -- mostly without being charged. The deal allows for at least part of that sentence to be suspended.

The 31-year-old former farmhand is the first person to be convicted in revised military tribunals created by the U.S. Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that President George W. Bush authorized to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.

Hicks acknowledged that he trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, fought with its forces against U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours, 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.

Hicks has previously claimed he was abused by the U.S. military but said in his plea agreement that he has never been illegally treated while in U.S. custody.

Rights groups and foreign governments have long condemned the prison at the U.S. Guantanamo 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.

The United States will send Hicks to Australia to serve his sentence, which is expected to be announced during the weekend. The transfer from Guantanamo is to take place within 60 days of sentencing.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

cryingreagan.gif

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

"Hicks has previously claimed he was abused by the U.S. military but said in his plea agreement that he has never been illegally treated while in U.S. custody."

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

the aussies can just let him go though, right? they were pissed at bush for holding him in the first place. or so i seem to remember.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:34 (eighteen years ago)

I doubt Howard will do that.

― Michael White, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

even howard was giving bush an earful though(this story is from march 2nd):

"Australian Prime Minister John Howard - under growing domestic pressure over Hicks' detention - has pressed the United States for a quick resolution and says justice is long overdue.

"The Americans have certainly speeded up the process. Whether that is the result of representations I've made to both President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I don't know but we have made those representations," he said. "We remain very unhappy that it's taken so long."

Hicks' defense team insists the American military commission is fabricating charges. His U.S. military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, welcomed a decision to drop earlier charges of attempted murder.

"Oh, I think they realized they everybody else in the world realized it was made up and a B.S. [groundless] charge. It was ridiculous," said Mori. "No one thought you could charge someone with attempted murder when the prosecution admitted that they never shot anybody. But yet they let that go on for two-and-a-half years. It's embarrassing that this has gone on this long."

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

Mr Downer [Australian Foreign Affairs Minister] welcomed the conviction which he said brought "to an end a long saga."

He would not comment on what he thinks the final sentence will be, but said the Australian government will honour the sentence if Hicks' applies to serve out his time in Australia.

"We have a prisoner transfer agreement with the United States," Mr Downer told ABC Radio.

"If Hicks applies to be brought back to Australia we can agree to that, which we would do, and he could serve out any sentence that is needed to be served here in Australia.

"But of course this is an international agreement, and to the sort of Free David Hicks campaign and people may wish once he gets back to Australia to start trying to get him out of prison immediately, we won't be facilitating that because we have an agreement with the United States."

He also ruled out the Australian government commuting Hicks' sentence.

"If any Australian gets involved in terrorist activities, they get no sympathy from us," he added.

"The sentence would be carried out fully, and I say that with a bit of passion because we take a very strong stand against terrorism."

there has been quite a bit of gloating about his guilty plea and 'bleeding hearts' are being urged to atone for five wasted years of worrying about a 'self-confessed terrorist'.

― estela, Friday, 30 March 2007 23:54 (eighteen years ago)

didn't he used to work in a kangaroo slaughterhouse? for real! that could drive a man mad.

oh and that guilty verdict and subsequent plea deal means about much as...about anything else that goes on down there. i'd say whatever the hell they wanted me to say too if it meant i got to leave!

― scott seward, Saturday, 31 March 2007 00:05 (eighteen years ago)

kangaroo court http://chanwear.com/shop/images/AMIRITE.jpg

― M.V., Saturday, 31 March 2007 00:09 (eighteen years ago)

killer of roo

(is anyone else super-excited that killer of sheep is coming out on dvd and in the movie theatre too!!!! i am really excited!!! i love that dude.)

― scott seward, Saturday, 31 March 2007 00:31 (eighteen years ago)

this is such an embarassing sham

― lfam, Saturday, 31 March 2007 03:48 (eighteen years ago)

i am sooooo mad

― lfam, Saturday, 31 March 2007 03:48 (eighteen years ago)

this is some bullshit for real

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 31 March 2007 03:50 (eighteen years ago)

It's been a huge scandal here in Australia and any real efforts to get him released by the incumbent government have only been after several years of lobbying by the public.

― badg, Saturday, 31 March 2007 04:19 (eighteen years ago)

he will be out of jail at the end of the year - after the local election - and he can't talk to the media for one year. it's all a big thankyou for our government being so far up bush's arsehole that they can't breathe.

― haitch, Saturday, 31 March 2007 04:34 (eighteen years ago)

In the documentary, Terry Hicks reads out excerpts of David Hicks's letters, in which Hicks says that his training in Pakistan and Afghanistan is designed to ensure "the Western-Jewish domination is finished, so we live under Muslim law again". He denounces the plots of the Jews to divide Muslims and make them think poorly of Osama bin Laden and warns his father to ignore "the Jews' propaganda war machine,"

Hicks allegedly told fellow recruits at his training camp he wanted to "go back to Australia and rob and kill Jews","crash a plane into a building", and "go out with that last big adrenalin rush"."

"He once told me in Afghanistan that if he were to go into a building of Jews with an automatic weapon or as a suicide bomber he would have to say something like 'there is no god but Allah' ect [sic] just so he could see the look of fear on their faces, before he takes them out," writes former Camp X-ray inmate Abbasi

― gershy, Saturday, 31 March 2007 04:48 (eighteen years ago)

in other words, dude didn't do anything at the time of his capture to deserve 7 years of toture or what have you, and it was wrong what happened to him. but i think it's also safe to say the guy was eventually going to do something pretty hateful & destructive.

― gershy, Saturday, 31 March 2007 04:52 (eighteen years ago)

no doubt, although i heard some hearsay that he is basically too dumb to ever be assigned any serious work by the organization (al-qaeda?). i guess that wouldn't make a difference in the american legal system, but this ad-hoc court is totally bonkers so whatever.

― lfam, Saturday, 31 March 2007 05:21 (eighteen years ago)

i liked how the judge removed one of his lawyers because the lawyer wouldn't agree to the rules and regulations of the commission... because they hadn't been written yet.

― lfam, Saturday, 31 March 2007 05:22 (eighteen years ago)

sub-(super?)nixon for sure

― lfam, Saturday, 31 March 2007 05:23 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah Gersh, I really get the impression that he's a deeply lost guy who thought that jihad gave him a purpose. Doesn't excuse his vitirol, but the guy was caught unarmed in the back of a truck. Ideology, no matter how repugnant, does not warrant seven years of incarceration or torture.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 31 March 2007 06:11 (eighteen years ago)

reading about his history, it seems like he desperately wanted to belong to something. apparently he tried really hard to join the australian army and they wouldn't let him. a man in search of a cult...

my disbelief stems from the fact that a sentence was handed down by a secret u.s. military tribunal to an australian citizen and supposedly australia has to abide by it?

― scott seward, Saturday, 31 March 2007 12:40 (eighteen years ago)

australia doesn't "have" to abide by it, they're CHOOSING to. australia is being the bitch to the u.s. government. i started a thread about a similar case, where australia is handing over someone to the u.s. to prosecute for copyright infringement.

― modestmickey, Saturday, 31 March 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

omg, lol ^^^^^

― gershy, Saturday, 31 March 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

austrailia be some bitches

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 31 March 2007 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

howard's suckholing to bush is partly what let this drag on as long as it did. other nationals detained in guantanamo were brought home by their govts years ago. howard and downer basically left this guy to rot.

i've been involved in organising rallies demanding justice for hicks for the last 6 or so months, there was a real turn in public opinion here in the last year or so. partly due to his JAG lawyer's campaigning - mori seems like a pretty awesome guy, i saw him speak last year. not exactly sure how he reconciles working for the US military and traipsing around the world writing the military commissions off, but props to him for doing it. i didn't really have a view on hicks' innocence or guilt. certainly i don't think his guilty plea is worth a pinch of anything... being locked up in solitary confinement and tortured for 5.5 years would, i think, lead anyone to say anything just to get out. but i DO believe in the rule of law and the basic fundamental right of human beings to certain protections, like the right to a fair trial in an open tribunal of fact which applies rules of evidence. i think both the US and australia should be ashamed of what happened to him and other people still locked up at guantanamo and yet to be tried. i don't think a statement like this:

[/]it's also safe to say the guy was eventually going to do something pretty hateful & destructive[/i]

is consistent with the rule of law and the legal system that exists in the US or australia. we take away people's freedom for crimes for which they have been tried and convicted, not because of some unidentified thing that may or may not happen in the future.

― gem, Sunday, 1 April 2007 00:09 (eighteen years ago)

thanks for the distortion! obv. saying the guy was "done wrong"

― gershy, Sunday, 1 April 2007 00:18 (eighteen years ago)

what distortion? i'm not criticising you, i'm commenting on that sentence. your full comment is written clearly above, thus difficult to distort?

― gem, Sunday, 1 April 2007 00:33 (eighteen years ago)

well, isolating my sentence and saying that it's not consistent with the rule of law seems to imply that i somehow think it is consistent with the US legal system - and i don't. that last sentence was just a reflection of my ambivalence towards Hicks, not an endorsement of his mistreatment or "pre-emptive" incarceration. i just find it hard to be wholly sympathetic on a PERSONAL level towards hate-filled fanatics who have trained to target civilian targets.

― gershy, Sunday, 1 April 2007 01:45 (eighteen years ago)

ok well the way i read your post was that his treatment was somehow justified because he might do something bad in the future, sorry if that's a misinterpretation. i don't feel like i really know that he is a hate-filled fanatic who has trained to target civilian targets (whatever that means)... i'm a bit circumspect about what i read in the media, and those 'facts' (or allegations, as i would refer to them) were never tested in court.

― gem, Sunday, 1 April 2007 01:52 (eighteen years ago)

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