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Beren Son Of Barahi
03-27-2007, 04:21
David hicks has pleaded out, in the first of the trials of detainees.

LINK HERE (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2419F722-D1DE-41F2-A8BB-E356231E947E.htm)
Hicks pleads guilty in Guantanamo

Hicks, pictured above in Kosovo, has been
held without trial since early 2002 [AP]
David Hicks, the Australian detainee at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has entered a plea of guilty to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

The 31-year-old entered the plea before a military tribunal on Monday, the first of almost 400 prisoners held at the base to face prosecution under revised US military tribunal rules.

The new tribunal was established by the US congress after the supreme court found the Pentagon's earlier version to be unconstitutional.

Hicks, who has been held for five years, faces two charges of providing material support for terrorism by fighting for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Hicks's plea came during a second tribunal session on Monday evening at the US military base.

His lawyer told the judge his client pleaded guilty to a charge that says he intentionally provided support to a terror organization involved in hostilities against the United States.

Charges against Hicks

That he intentionally provided support to a terror organization involved in hostilities against the United States.
Plea: Guilty

That he provided support for preparation, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism.
Plea: Not guilty
He denied a second charge that he provided supported for preparation, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism.

Hicks was originally charged with war crimes and conspiracy to commit murder, and critics say the new charges are broader and less specific.

Human rights groups have criticised the tribunal saying the process lacks legal safeguards, while the crime with which Hicks is charged did not even exist when he was captured in 2001.

News of Hicks's guilty plea was welcomed by Australia's foreign minister who said he expected him to return home soon to serve his sentence in an Australian jail, under an agreement reached with Washington.

"My guess is he will be able to come back (to Australia) fairly soon," Alexander Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Earlier Hicks's Australian lawyer, David McLeod, said Hicks was convinced he would not get a fair trial and might plead guilty if it would get him home sooner.

McLeod said there had been discussions about a potential plea agreement under which Hicks would receive a reduced sentence if he pleaded guilty.

Hearing

During Monday's initial arraignment hearing Hicks, wearing a khaki prison jumpsuit, told the judge he was satisfied with his Pentagon-appointed attorney but wanted more defence lawyers and paralegals "to get equality with the prosecution."

But the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, said two civilian lawyers, including a defence department attorney, were not authorised to represent him.

The two were ordered to leave the defence table when Hicks said he would not settle for them being designated as legal consultants.

Hicks's father, Terry, was allowed to meet
his son before the hearing [EPA]
One of the lawyers, Joshua Dratel, said he refused to sign an agreement to abide by tribunal rules because he was concerned the provisions do not allow him to meet with his client in private.

The US military flew Hicks' father and sister to the base and allowed them to meet privately with him in the court building before the hearing started.

Hicks has previously appeared before an earlier military tribunal system created by a presidential order, which the US supreme court later ruled unconstitutional.

Last year the US congress, then under a Republican majority, passed a law authorising a reconstituted tribunal regime with some adjustments but still operating outside of regular US courts or military courts-martial.

The commission law permits hearsay, evidence obtained through "coercion", to be admitted to the case, and bars detainees from appealing their detention in US courts.

Coercion


"I recognize that around the world, 'Guantanamo,' when you say the word, has a negative connotation"

Air Force Colonel Morris Davis,
the chief prosecutor
Hicks' lawyers and human rights monitors observing the hearings say the trials are rigged to ensure convictions and allow the information obtained through coercion.

Hicks is not accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington DC and Human Rights Watch has said he could easily be tried in a regular US court.

Speaking to reporters before Monday's arraignment hearing, Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor for the tribunals, said prosecution planned to prove Hicks had provided "support for the al-Qaeda organisation".

Davis admitted critics had effectively turned public opinion against the Guantanamo tribunals but said he expected that to change once the military begins presenting evidence.

"I recognize that around the world, 'Guantanamo,' when you say the word, has a negative connotation," he said. "One thing I hope is that in the way we conduct these proceedings, maybe we can change some of those attitudes."


this is interesting that both the prosecution and defense plead out straight away...

Devastatin Dave
03-27-2007, 06:43
Give him the o"range jump suit coming out party", Islam style.:smash:

Tribesman
03-27-2007, 08:33
Thats not bad going is it , 5 years to bring relatively minor charges against a nobody and then do a deal for a guilty plea .
Way to go Guantanamo:dizzy2:

Fisherking
03-27-2007, 09:13
I have some trouble with him being tried by a military court. He is not subject to the UCMJ and likely not the Geneva Accords...so what are they trieing him under?

BDC
03-27-2007, 09:35
I have some trouble with him being tried by a military court. He is not subject to the UCMJ and likely not the Geneva Accords...so what are they trieing him under?
The "We have all the guns, go to hell" clause.

Anyone else find it very convenient that his civilian lawyers weren't allowed in?

"It's definitely a fair trial, just you know, no cameras, press, civilians, monitors, and only people who stand to lose a lot if he's found not guilty."

Sir Moody
03-27-2007, 09:36
Earlier Hicks's Australian lawyer, David McLeod, said Hicks was convinced he would not get a fair trial and might plead guilty if it would get him home sooner.

McLeod said there had been discussions about a potential plea agreement under which Hicks would receive a reduced sentence if he pleaded guilty.

well those 2 lines should put a damper on anyone who thinks this proves the big G is working

basically i think his lawyer relised he wouldnt get out unless he pleaded for something and so made a deal for a pathetic charge...

Beren Son Of Barahi
03-28-2007, 00:37
it seems like our wonderful government might of leaned on the US to offer a deal and get him out of there, it wasn't doing anyone any good i think...

goes to show how bad he must of been to offer "the worst of the worst" a deal in which he gets home with very likely almost zero extra time to serve... great process i say...

the best part is the wonderful government here, say that this justifies their position all along... what garbage...:wall:

IrishArmenian
03-28-2007, 01:43
Three cheers for a disgusting, underhanded, inhumane and cruel system!

Devastatin Dave
03-28-2007, 02:05
Three cheers for a disgusting, underhanded, inhumane and cruel system!
OK...
Hip,hip, Hoooray!!! Hip,hip, Hoooray!!!

Now lets break out the firing squads and really make some terrorist supporters' panties moist.

Lemur
03-28-2007, 06:01
The "We have all the guns, go to hell" clause.
Hmm, yes, I think that was originally codified by Pompeius Magnus; we've been invoking it quite a lot.

It has a certain clarity, though, doesn't it?

Tribesman
03-28-2007, 07:50
EDIT: Removed personal attack. BG

KafirChobee
03-28-2007, 18:44
Now he has the chance to return to his home country - Australia. Where he may actually receive a real trial if he is allowed too.

Let us wait and see just how the powers that be continue to handle this travesty. Personally, I thought the Supreme Court already ruled that the millitary tribunals as being conducted were illegal - what changed?
:balloon2:

Goofball
03-28-2007, 20:01
OK...
Hip,hip, Hoooray!!! Hip,hip, Hoooray!!!

Now lets break out the firing squads and really make some terrorist supporters' panties moist.

Just want to make sure I understand, Dave:

If you are in favor of due process of law, then you are a terrorist supporter?

I'm just trying to see where your head's at here...

Seamus Fermanagh
03-28-2007, 20:09
The argument has always been (for the most part, there are variants):

a) you accept the interpretation that these are "enemy combatants" waging war without the governing aegis of a recognized polity. Since these combatants are not participants in some internal insurrection -- where uniforms and the like are not expected -- they are subject to military tribunals.

OR

b) you accept the interpretation that these terrorists are criminals and entitled to prosecution with all of the due process associated with criminal trials in a typical Western country.


If you believe "b" to be correct, then you believe that about 95% of those in Guantanemo Bay Detention facilities should be released from detention and returned their home countrys.

Devastatin Dave
03-28-2007, 20:20
Just want to make sure I understand, Dave:

If you are in favor of due process of law, then you are a terrorist supporter?

I'm just trying to see where your head's at here...
My answer is A. Thanks Seamus

Lemur
03-31-2007, 05:01
Nine months in his home country. (http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-03-31T031349Z_01_N29344917_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-GUANTANAMO-COL.XML)

"Hicks' plea agreement bars him from speaking to the media for one year and requires him to give the Australian government any money received for the rights to his story. Rights groups who monitored the trial said the deal seemed aimed at shielding the United States from scrutiny over its treatment of Guantanamo prisoners."

Slyspy
03-31-2007, 21:56
The bit I like best is that the charge he has pleaded guilty to didn't even exist as a crime when he was detained.

Samurai Waki
03-31-2007, 22:33
Gitmos still around? Why hasn't the US bombed them yet? ...oh thats right :inquisitive:

Seamus Fermanagh
04-01-2007, 04:04
I've heard a number of members of the military remark privately that they have little concern for what happens to the inmates at Gitmo. The general theme seems to be that Gitmo represents civilized restraint that stands -- in their minds -- as the "nice" alternative to a bullet.

I do not know how general this sentiment is.

Papewaio
04-02-2007, 01:22
Is retroactive just laws an oxymoron?

=][=

Check this coincidence out:

Even though his sentence should expire by the time he gets home he is to stay in prison until after the federal elections. :2thumbsup: Move along, nothing to see here.


I've heard a number of members of the military remark privately that they have little concern for what happens to the inmates at Gitmo. The general theme seems to be that Gitmo represents civilized restraint that stands -- in their minds -- as the "nice" alternative to a bullet.

If that is a statement of fact then this is no longer a superfluous statement:
Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Evil_Maniac From Mars
04-02-2007, 02:43
If that is a statement of fact then this is no longer a superfluous statement:
Truth, Justice and the American Way.
Only one of those seems to be important these days. :whip:

Lemur
04-02-2007, 06:13
I don't agree with the hysterical tone, but Sullivan (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/hicks_cheney_ho.html) does a good job of connecting the dots in the Hicks case ...

So Cheney goes to Australia and meets with John Howard who tells him that the Hicks case is killing him in Australia, and he may lose the next election because of it. Hicks's case is then railroaded to the front of the Gitmo kangaro court line, and put through a "legal" process almost ludicrously inept, with two of Hicks' three lawyers thrown out on one day, then an abrupt plea-bargain, with a transparently insincere confession. Hicks is then given a mere nine months in jail in Australia, before being set free. Who negotiated the plea-bargain? Hicks' lawyer. Who did he negotiate with? Not the prosecutors, as would be normal, but Susan J. Crawford, the top military commission official. Who is Susan J. Crawford? She served as Dick Cheney's Inspector General (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=17781) while he was Defense Secretary. Money quote (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033100976.html?nav=rss_print/asection):


As the deal developed in recent weeks, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor for military commissions, and his team on the Hicks case were not in the loop. Davis said he learned about the plea agreement Monday morning when the plea papers were presented to him, and he said the prosecution team was unaware that discussions had been taking place.

"We got it before lunchtime, before the first session," Davis said at a news conference Friday night. In an interview later, he said the approved sentence of nine months shocked him. "I wasn't considering anything that didn't have two digits," he said, referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.

If you think this was in any way a legitimate court process, you're smoking something even George Michael would pay a lot of money for. It was a political deal, revealing the circus that the alleged Gitmo court system really is. For good measure, Hicks has a gag-order imposed so that he will not be able to speak of his alleged torture and abuse until after Howard faces re-election. Yes, we live in a banana republic. It certainly isn't a country ruled by law. It is ruled by one man and his accomplice.

Banquo's Ghost
04-02-2007, 08:50
One of the many things that depresses me about all this is how conservatives, usually dependable on core values like the rule of law, seem to think this stuff is OK.

Then again, I thought fiscal probity was a conservative value too. Maybe our conservatives over this side of the pond define themselves differently too.

A Brit has got home (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6515701.stm) too. No charge, apparently. Maybe they thought the battery charger in his luggage would have provided that.

Five years for being in the Gambia with a funny sounding name and a plug. :shame:

UK man released from Guantanamo


A British resident is back in the UK after being held in Guantanamo Bay for almost five years.

Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi national, was held at the US detention camp in Cuba on suspicion of links to terrorism while on a trip to Gambia in 2002.

In a statement Mr Rawi, a businessman from south-west London, said: "I am delighted to be back home in England, with my family."

On Thursday, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said it had been agreed with the US authorities that he would be returned to the UK, but officials have not disclosed precisely when the detainee was freed.

"As happy as I am to be home though, leaving my best friend Jamil al-Banna behind in Guantanamo Bay makes my freedom bittersweet," Mr Rawi said in a statement released through the law firm Reprieve.

"Jamil was arrested with me in the Gambia on exactly the same unfounded allegations, yet he is still a prisoner.

"I also feel great sorrow for the other nine British residents who remain prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

'Misinformation'

"The extreme isolation they are going through is one of the most profoundly difficult things to endure. I know that all too well."

Mr Rawi also paid tribute to all those who campaigned for his release.

His lawyer, Zachary Katznelson, gave further details on why Mr Rawi was originally arrested.

He said a "suspicious device" was found in his client's luggage but added that it turned out to be a battery charger.

Mr Katznelson added: "So it was misinformation that started this chain of events, though unfortunately that led to him first being taken by the CIA to Afghanistan to an underground prison of 24 hour darkness with rats everywhere, to then being taken to Guantanamo - and it took years to right this wrong."

He accused the American authorities of treating Mr Rawi with "brutality".

Mr Katznelson went on: "Right to the end they treated him with brutality, on the way to the plane in Guantanamo - they knew he was leaving - they insisted still on shackling him, blindfolding him, putting on earmuffs so he couldn't hear a thing and keeping him in the back of a very hot , very confined van on the way to the plane."

However the lawyer praised the way the British authorities treated his client after the handover.

False dawns

His constituency MP, Lib Dem Edward Davey, described the news as "fantastic".

He said: "There were many, many months of despair punctured by a few false dawns.

"Yet the sense that a huge injustice was being done kept the family and the team of campaigners together."

Mr Davey said the government must ask British officials in the US to negotiate for the return of other UK residents in the US detention camp.

Meanwhile, Sarah Teather, Mr Banna's MP, said Britain had a moral duty to get her constituent home.

Secret police

British officials have long refused to represent resident foreigners held at Guantanamo, but took up Mr Rawi's case after it was disclosed he had previously co-operated with MI5.

Mr Rawi, an Iraqi citizen with UK residency, was reportedly sent to England in 1985 after his father was arrested by Saddam Hussein's secret police.

Mr Banna is a Jordanian refugee who had been living in north-west London.

Both men were alleged to have been associated with al-Qaeda through their connection with the London-based radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.

Mr Rawi and Mr Banna have denied any involvement with Islamic terrorism.

Slyspy
04-02-2007, 13:32
Not actually a Brit of course, but close enough!

Adrian II
04-02-2007, 14:08
Even though his sentence should expire by the time he gets home he is to stay in prison until after the federal elections. :2thumbsup: https://img488.imageshack.us/img488/2608/fourireuo4.gif (https://imageshack.us) Even a kangoroo wouldn't be so stoopid.