Hicks lawyer questions tribunal changes
March 31, 2005 - 9:59AM

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The American lawyer of Adelaide man David Hicks fears changes to the controversial military tribunals set up to prosecute him and other terror suspects held at Guantanamo will be "too little, too late".

"The problem is it's going to be more of the same," Major Michael Mori, the US military lawyer assigned to defend Hicks, said.

Mori's comments follow reports the US Defence Department is considering changing the military tribunals at the Cuban base after widespread criticism from the US federal court, foreign governments and human rights groups.

Mori said any new system would remain flawed because the prosecutors "are still going to continue to write the rules".

He questioned why Hicks and other Guantanamo Bay inmates were not being tried under established US court systems.

"It's not like they're saying 'we're going to use a court martial system' or 'we're going to use the federal court system' or 'we're going to use a real system' which is what needs to be done," Mori said.it's disappointing that if they try to redo it that they ought to just do it right and say 'there only needs to be one new rule - commissions will be the same as the procedures and rules of courts martial.

"There's no need to write a new manual. We have one written already."

Hicks' case is still on hold awaiting the legal outcome of that of another Guantanamo inmate, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni man accused of being al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's personal driver.

"We're on hold in the commission system. We're on hold in the federal courts," Mori said

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking-News/Hicks-lawyer-questions-tribunal-changes/2005/03/31/1111862499208.html