In exchange for a plea of guilty and a statement denying that he had ever been tortured in U.S. custody, David Hicks is a step closer to returning home to Australia today.
GUANTANAMO BAY: A US military tribunal convicted Australian al Qaeda trainee David Hicks of supporting terrorism, making him the first war crimes convict among the hundreds of foreign captives held for years at the Guantanamo prison camp.
The tribunal judge accepted Hicks' guilty plea as part of an agreement that limits his sentence to seven years in prison, in addition to the five years he has been held at the Guantanamo base in Cuba. But the deal allows for at least part of his sentence to be suspended.
Source: Link.
Hicks will receive a maximum of seven years in jail under a plea deal agreed at a US military commission at the Guantanamo Bay base on Cuba.
The Australian government had secured a commitment from Washington that Hicks would not face the death sentence and could serve any remainder of his sentence back home in Australia. He has spent five years in Guantanamo.
A convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, Hicks is the first Guantanamo prisoner to have his case brought before the commissions set up to try terror suspects. Years of legal wrangling preceded the trial.
Military prosecutors alleged that Hicks attended al-Qaeda training sessions and travelled to Afghanistan from Pakistan after the September 11 attacks, to join the fight against the US-led coalition. They say he was issued a gun and ammunition at Kandahar airport and was ready to go into combat against US troops and their allies.
It was not immediately clear whether the five years Hicks has spent at the prison would count towards his sentence. But he is assured that he will soon return home. Under the terms of the deal he is to be transferred to his home town of Adelaide within 60 days of sentencing.
However, the dispensation of Hicks's case has been widely criticised by human rights organisations, which say he was compelled to plead guilty to the charges after despairing that he would receive a fair trial.
Hicks made a hasty decision to enter a guilty plea on Monday night, a few hours after the presiding military judge dismissed two of his three defence lawyers.
Source: Guardian UK.
Hicks's continued detention became a political liability for the Australian government, which pressed the Bush administration to deal with his case.
Domestic opinion in Australia could help Hicks a second time after his return. It is expected he will swiftly challenge his plea on the grounds that it was not an entirely voluntary offer.
Even so, the resolution of his case, the first of only 10 prisoners to be charged at Guantánamo, marks an important milestone for the Bush administration, which is eager to demonstrate the legitimacy of the military tribunals.
Hicks's decision to plead guilty spared the administration the prospect of subjecting its interrogation procedures in the war on terror to scrutiny. The military commissions allow the use of evidence obtained through torture.
"The government has a strong interest in these cases in obtaining pleas because in any contested trials it is extremely likely that the case will become a trial of US tactics of obtaining evidence in the war on terror," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "If it can avoid these trials it can avoid the embarrassment of having to defend its interrogation tactics."
Hicks, a 31-year-old Muslim convert, faces a prison sentence of up to seven years under a plea agreement that also requires Hicks to drop any claims of mistreatment by the US government since he was captured in Afghanistan and taken to Guantanamo Bay, said the judge, Marine Corps Col Ralph Kohlmann. The plea agreement also calls for an unknown portion of the sentence to be suspended.
Hicks had pleaded guilty to the charge on Monday but was not convicted until Col Kohlmann accepted his plea at yesterday's session.
The agreement calls for Hicks to be returned to Australia within 60 days of his sentencing, which is expected within days. The US government had previously agreed to let him serve any sentence in Australia.