First gitmo captive pleads out.

[Lemur]

Nine months in his home country.

"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]

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]

Gitmos still around? Why hasn't the US bombed them yet? ...oh thats right

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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]

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. 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]

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.

[Lemur]

I don't agree with the hysterical tone, but Sullivan does a good job of connecting the dots in the Hicks case ...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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 while he was Defense Secretary. Money quote:

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]

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 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.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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]

Not actually a Brit of course, but close enough!

[Adrian II]

Even though his sentence should expire by the time he gets home he is to stay in prison until after the federal elections.

Even a kangoroo wouldn't be so stoopid.