Posted: 3/3/2007 5:13:05 AM EDT
 US wants Hicks in jail for 20 years * Verity Edwards and David Nason * March 03, 2007 US authorities are expected to seek a jail term of between 15 and 20 years for Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks after formally charging him with providing support to a terrorist organisation. Hicks yesterday became the first Australian detainee to be charged under the new military commissions process and is likely to face court within a month. He was handed a copy of the charge sheet in his cell at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been detained for more than five years after being arrested in Afghanistan in 2001. But a charge of attempted murder was dropped after the US military's convening authority - judge Susan Crawford - declared there was no probable cause for the allegation. US prosecutor Morris Davis said that if the case proceeded to trial the US would seek a sentence in excess of the 15 to 20 years discussed in plea-bargain negotiations that stalled in late January. The prosecution would not seek the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The announcement of charges against Hicks sparked a renewed flurry of calls for the Australian Government to seek his return. Hicks's father, Terry, challenged the Prime Minister on regional radio, asking why his son could be charged retrospectively. But Mr Howard said the offence had existed since 1994 and was "not retrospective", adding that he had appealed to President George W.Bush to expedite the trial. Opposition justice spokesman Kelvin Thomson called on the Government to review its position now that the only charge laid against David Hicks was one involving the application of retrospective law. "Why is it not OK to charge David Hicks with retrospective offences under Australian law, yet apparently it is OK to charge David Hicks retrospectively (at) Guantanamo Bay?" Mr Thomson asked. "David Hicks is entitled to a fair trial, nothing more and nothing less." Hicks's US military lawyer, Michael Mori, angrily repudiated the decision to proceed with the charge and sought a meeting with Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, claiming the Pentagon's statement was an admission the initial charges laid against Hicks were made up and had no basis in law or fact. "It's disgusting that he has spent five years in Guantanamo for made-up charges," Major Mori said. "Now they are doing it again. They are repeating history by creating a new crime after the fact and trying to apply it to David retroactively." Mr Ruddock did not meet Major Mori. He said the refining of the charges originally laid against Hicks was evidence the US military commission process was working. "The dropping of the attempted murder charge seems to me to demonstrate ... that this isn't a rubber stamp. The convening authority is properly exercising her discretion in, she's a judge, in a proper and conscientious way," he told the ABC. Hicks's lawyers refused yesterday to be drawn on any plea bargain. Hicks's Adelaide-based lawyer, David McLeod, said if the charges were not retrospective, Hicks should have already been tried before a US federal court. "If what the US Government is saying is correct, he should have been tried five years ago in a federal court and here we are, five years later," Mr McLeod said yesterday. And to add to this, The World reported that the Australian government is criticizing the U.S. and wants him returned so they can give him a fair trial, because they think we won't. Australian David Hicks report (3:30) So what's your opinion on this case? Should we kick him out and let they Australian try him all they want or should we continue and make an example of him? I can't find a way to make a poll otherwise I'd post one up. 
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 As an Australian I say Hicks needs to be punished for his mistakes. Joining the Taliban isnt even his first scrape with Islamic Extremism, prior to Taliban he was a trained by a Pakistani terrorist group "Lashkar-e-Toiba" and later Al Qaida (In which he met Osama bin Laden himself on several occasions and assisted the organization.) Due to no appropriate law being on the books in Australia, if they returned him the authorities would not be able to charge him with anything and he'd likely be walking the streets in short order. How do people consider that acceptable? The issue has become so politicised in Australia that returning Hicks to Australian soil has become a key argument by the same people who want to withdraw troops from Iraq and hope to win upcoming elections running on this platform. The only legitimate gripe people seem to have in my opinion is the length of time it has taken to bring him to trial. It's pathetic that certain politicians will stand with Hicks in an effort to ride a percieved wave of anti-US sentiment to further their own personal political agendas. Instead, in my humble opinion they should be denouncing him as a traitor and a terrorist. |