US military blocks Hicks's health plea
WAR CRIMINALS, LIES LIES AND MORE LIES.
4 years and no charges, Shame on the Australian Government, Covering up their own lies and Georgies for the friking Illegal War and Occupation of Iraq.
The five-year hell endured by Hicks is a direct result of Canberra’s refusal to demand his repatriation. Australia is the only government in the world not to request the release of its citizens from Guantánamo.
As is now clear to tens of thousands of ordinary Australians, the Howard government has used Hicks as another means of demonstrating its unswerving support for the Bush administration and the so-called “war on terror”.
December 19, 2006 04:00am
US military authorities have blocked a request by Guantanamo Bay inmate, Australian David Hicks, to undergo an independent mental health assessment.
Hicks’s Pentagon lawyer, US Major Michael Mori, told Fairfax newspapers a visit by Paul Mullen, clinical director of Victoria's Forensic Mental Service, planned for next month had been vetoed.
Hicks was entitled only to an assessment by US military psychologists, who had also been involved in his interrogation.
“I want him to get help,” Major Mori said.
“He's not going to open up to his jailers.”
Hicks has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 after being arrested in Afghanistan on or around December 9, 2001, during the US invasion.
He had pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
However, the charges were dropped after the US Supreme Court in June declared illegal the military tribunals set up to try Hicks and other inmates.
The Australian Government believes Hicks could face charges next month with the enactment of new regulations governing the US military commission expected to try him.
Major Mori doubted the US assurances given to Australia Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer during their visit to Washington last week.
Linkhere
Bring Hicks home
Ian Munro and Penny Debelle
December 2, 2006 - 8:05PM
Page 1 of 6 Single page
He lives in a cell of featureless walls, 24-hour lighting and a single window of frosted glass that in daylight glows like a fluorescent globe.
For five years, David Hicks has occupied spaces like this, caught between a US Government that has been unable to prosecute him and an Australian Government that refuses to try to free him. This sentence without trial, in conditions so secret that he cannot be photographed, could drag on for another two years unless the Federal Government asks the United States to send him home.
Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says Australia is tolerating a terrible situation. While Hicks has been in legal limbo, John Walker Lindh — the so-called American Taliban who trained at the same camp as Hicks — has been charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced. But Lindh broke American law; Hicks has not broken Australian law.
"America would not tolerate this for one of its citizens," says Mori. "Nor would it tolerate any politicians sacrificing some American citizen to the whim of a foreign country, regardless of whether they are our ally or not. It just doesn't happen."
Lindh and Hicks trained at the al-Qaeda-run camp, al Farooq, before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Training included weapons familiarisation, maps and topography, battlefield operations and explosives. Hicks allegedly also trained for two months at a Lashkar-e- Toiba camp in Pakistan.
Another convert to Islam to attend al Farooq, and to observe bin Laden, was Jack Thomas. He has fared much better than Hicks. While Hicks was captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to American forces in Afghanistan in November 2001, Thomas avoided capture in al-Qaeda safe houses in Pakistan. When finally detained in January 2003, Thomas was held by Pakistani security for five months and released. After returning to Australia, Thomas was charged, remanded, tried, convicted of two charges and acquitted of two other terrorismrelated offences.
He has since appealed successfully against his convictions. Thomas' case was subject to months of pre-trial argument. All told, he spent 14 months in custody, but is presently free and subject to a control order that also is being challenged in the High Court. Whatever else might be said of Thomas' experiences, he has had the benefit of a robust and transparent legal system.
After Hicks' capture, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer dismissed concerns that the Government had abandoned one of its citizens, saying those who got involved with groups like al-Qaeda were "bound to get into trouble". More recently, the Government has urged the US to try him swiftly.
"The United States has always told us that it believes it has sufficient information to be able to put Mr Hicks on trial," Attorney General Philip Ruddock said recently. "Australia's view has always been that this should happen as quickly as possible."
Ruddock says that Australia continues to push the US ("however, we have not given the United States a specific deadline") and recently promised Hicks' father, Terry, that inquiries would be made about his son's physical and psychological welfare.
But Mori says challenges to the new military commissions — authorised by US Congress after the first commissions set up by President George Bush were declared illegal — will seriously delay Hicks' case. "We're probably talking the end of 2008 or 2009 as the next time the Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the commissions," Mori says.
In contrast to Australia's compliance with the military commissions, Britain demanded the US release its citizens from Guantanamo more than 2 years ago. Associate professor at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Unit, David Wright-Neville, regards Hicks' treatment as outrageous in a human rights sense, and counterproductive from the perspective of counter-terrorism. He says the denial of justice and due process smacks of victimisation and threatens an entire community within Australia.
"David Hicks has been offered up as a sacrifi ce to the Bush administration," Wright-Neville says. "They had to let go of the Poms and the Swedes, so they want some token white guy so they can say we are prosecuting Europeans, not just Pakistanis and Saudis."
David Matthew Hicks' road to Guantanamo seems to have begun in his mid-20s, when he converted to Islam at an Adelaide mosque. But its roots lie deeper, in a thirst for adventure combined with a youthful fascination with the Silk Road, the old trade route from China to the West through Afghanistan and neighbouring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. When his relationship with his de facto wife ended, he was free to pursue that dream.
Hicks and Jodie Marie Sparrow met at a rodeo in 1992, when Hicks was 17. By 1995, they had two children. A year later they had separated. After a period in Japan training horses, Hicks went to Kosovo where he undertook military training, supporting the Muslim forces.
Back in Adelaide in 1999, he adopted Islam, changed his name to Dawood and found his way to Afghanistan by seeking out Islamic radicals in Pakistan. US authorities alleged he engaged in "hostile action" in Pakistan before training with al-Qaeda. After two years' incarceration, he was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy and attempted murder, but the charges lapsed when the initial military commissions were ruled unlawful in June this year.
Hicks' status as an alleged enemy of the US who was supposed to have taken up arms against it was referred to the Combatant Status Review Tribunals created in 2004. This followed a series of legal challenges by detainees, including Hicks.
On August 17, 2004, Hicks was confirmed as an enemy combatant. But this was a system that cleared only two of the first 230 individuals it reviewed. It was a process that barrister Lex Lasry, QC, thought profoundly flawed.
In a report for the Law Council of Australia, Lasry said the tribunals were comprised of military officers who would have to contradict their own chain of command to find in favour of a detainee. Also, detainees were not allowed to be represented by a lawyer, the tribunal proceeded from an assumption that detainees were enemy combatants, and the detainees could not know of classified evidence against them. Writing before the US Supreme Court declared the military commissions illegal six months ago, Lasry said that by the time the trials and their subsequent appeals were done, the process could have taken many more years.
"Throughout this period, the detainees, including David Hicks, remain incarcerated. That this can be allowed to occur is genuinely outrageous. This situation could never be replicated in an Australian criminal court.
"A delay of this nature would have resulted in a grant of bail to an accused on the grounds of ‘exceptional circumstances' years ago."
In Adelaide, Hicks' Australian advocate, David McLeod, a conservative lawyer with military experience in Iraq, said Ruddock should be held to a commitment to have Hicks' case dealt with quickly, and to bring him back to Australia if he could not be properly tried. McLeod said Hicks could not be properly tried because the authority of the new military commissions was already under attack; he had a legal opinion from six senior Australian lawyers who believed the new commissions violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. The legal review by three QCs and three professors also found further serious delays in Hicks' case were almost inevitable.
December 2, 2006 - 8:05PM
Page 1 of 6 Single page
He lives in a cell of featureless walls, 24-hour lighting and a single window of frosted glass that in daylight glows like a fluorescent globe.
For five years, David Hicks has occupied spaces like this, caught between a US Government that has been unable to prosecute him and an Australian Government that refuses to try to free him. This sentence without trial, in conditions so secret that he cannot be photographed, could drag on for another two years unless the Federal Government asks the United States to send him home.
Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says Australia is tolerating a terrible situation. While Hicks has been in legal limbo, John Walker Lindh — the so-called American Taliban who trained at the same camp as Hicks — has been charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced. But Lindh broke American law; Hicks has not broken Australian law.
"America would not tolerate this for one of its citizens," says Mori. "Nor would it tolerate any politicians sacrificing some American citizen to the whim of a foreign country, regardless of whether they are our ally or not. It just doesn't happen."
Lindh and Hicks trained at the al-Qaeda-run camp, al Farooq, before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Training included weapons familiarisation, maps and topography, battlefield operations and explosives. Hicks allegedly also trained for two months at a Lashkar-e- Toiba camp in Pakistan.
Another convert to Islam to attend al Farooq, and to observe bin Laden, was Jack Thomas. He has fared much better than Hicks. While Hicks was captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to American forces in Afghanistan in November 2001, Thomas avoided capture in al-Qaeda safe houses in Pakistan. When finally detained in January 2003, Thomas was held by Pakistani security for five months and released. After returning to Australia, Thomas was charged, remanded, tried, convicted of two charges and acquitted of two other terrorismrelated offences.
He has since appealed successfully against his convictions. Thomas' case was subject to months of pre-trial argument. All told, he spent 14 months in custody, but is presently free and subject to a control order that also is being challenged in the High Court. Whatever else might be said of Thomas' experiences, he has had the benefit of a robust and transparent legal system.
After Hicks' capture, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer dismissed concerns that the Government had abandoned one of its citizens, saying those who got involved with groups like al-Qaeda were "bound to get into trouble". More recently, the Government has urged the US to try him swiftly.
"The United States has always told us that it believes it has sufficient information to be able to put Mr Hicks on trial," Attorney General Philip Ruddock said recently. "Australia's view has always been that this should happen as quickly as possible."
Ruddock says that Australia continues to push the US ("however, we have not given the United States a specific deadline") and recently promised Hicks' father, Terry, that inquiries would be made about his son's physical and psychological welfare.
But Mori says challenges to the new military commissions — authorised by US Congress after the first commissions set up by President George Bush were declared illegal — will seriously delay Hicks' case. "We're probably talking the end of 2008 or 2009 as the next time the Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the commissions," Mori says.
In contrast to Australia's compliance with the military commissions, Britain demanded the US release its citizens from Guantanamo more than 2 years ago. Associate professor at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Unit, David Wright-Neville, regards Hicks' treatment as outrageous in a human rights sense, and counterproductive from the perspective of counter-terrorism. He says the denial of justice and due process smacks of victimisation and threatens an entire community within Australia.
"David Hicks has been offered up as a sacrifi ce to the Bush administration," Wright-Neville says. "They had to let go of the Poms and the Swedes, so they want some token white guy so they can say we are prosecuting Europeans, not just Pakistanis and Saudis."
David Matthew Hicks' road to Guantanamo seems to have begun in his mid-20s, when he converted to Islam at an Adelaide mosque. But its roots lie deeper, in a thirst for adventure combined with a youthful fascination with the Silk Road, the old trade route from China to the West through Afghanistan and neighbouring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. When his relationship with his de facto wife ended, he was free to pursue that dream.
Hicks and Jodie Marie Sparrow met at a rodeo in 1992, when Hicks was 17. By 1995, they had two children. A year later they had separated. After a period in Japan training horses, Hicks went to Kosovo where he undertook military training, supporting the Muslim forces.
Back in Adelaide in 1999, he adopted Islam, changed his name to Dawood and found his way to Afghanistan by seeking out Islamic radicals in Pakistan. US authorities alleged he engaged in "hostile action" in Pakistan before training with al-Qaeda. After two years' incarceration, he was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy and attempted murder, but the charges lapsed when the initial military commissions were ruled unlawful in June this year.
Hicks' status as an alleged enemy of the US who was supposed to have taken up arms against it was referred to the Combatant Status Review Tribunals created in 2004. This followed a series of legal challenges by detainees, including Hicks.
On August 17, 2004, Hicks was confirmed as an enemy combatant. But this was a system that cleared only two of the first 230 individuals it reviewed. It was a process that barrister Lex Lasry, QC, thought profoundly flawed.
In a report for the Law Council of Australia, Lasry said the tribunals were comprised of military officers who would have to contradict their own chain of command to find in favour of a detainee. Also, detainees were not allowed to be represented by a lawyer, the tribunal proceeded from an assumption that detainees were enemy combatants, and the detainees could not know of classified evidence against them. Writing before the US Supreme Court declared the military commissions illegal six months ago, Lasry said that by the time the trials and their subsequent appeals were done, the process could have taken many more years.
"Throughout this period, the detainees, including David Hicks, remain incarcerated. That this can be allowed to occur is genuinely outrageous. This situation could never be replicated in an Australian criminal court.
"A delay of this nature would have resulted in a grant of bail to an accused on the grounds of ‘exceptional circumstances' years ago."
In Adelaide, Hicks' Australian advocate, David McLeod, a conservative lawyer with military experience in Iraq, said Ruddock should be held to a commitment to have Hicks' case dealt with quickly, and to bring him back to Australia if he could not be properly tried. McLeod said Hicks could not be properly tried because the authority of the new military commissions was already under attack; he had a legal opinion from six senior Australian lawyers who believed the new commissions violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. The legal review by three QCs and three professors also found further serious delays in Hicks' case were almost inevitable.
"Like its predecessor, the Second Military Commission is a legal experiment which is vulnerable to legal challenge," the legal review said. "Indeed, by its very structure and the nature of the trial procedures, such a challenge is invited. If David Hicks or others pursue their legal entitlements through the appeal process in the United States, further delays of some years will be inevitable."
Even the fresh charges against Hicks have been delayed. After the US Supreme Court handed down the landmark legal decision in the case of Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the charges against Hicks were negated by the finding that the commissions were illegal. The new charges cannot be filed until regulations are passed by the US Secretary of Defence, a position thrown into turmoil by the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, who is soon to be replaced by a former CIA director, Robert Gates. Mori says the initial charges against Hicks should reassure Australians that Hicks, who has abandoned his Muslim beliefs, was not a terrorist threat.
"I think people were expecting David would be charged with killing somebody, or planting a bomb, yet he wasn't," Mori says. "What were the specifics? He was guarding a tank, he went to training camps . . . you expect they would then say he then engaged in combat and shot someone, but they don't because he did not do anything."
When Mori visits Hicks at Camp Five at the Guantanamo Bay military prison early this week, it will be the prisoner's first contact since October, when the alarm was raised over Hicks' deteriorating physical condition. Sent back into virtual solitary confinement in March this year, Hicks, 31, was said to be suffering depression and a range of physical problems, including fluctuating weight, poor eyesight and back pain.
Hicks has not practised Islam for two to three years. He is patriotic to Australia and jumped to the defence of Australia when taunted during an interrogation, Mori says.
"The only time I think David was cross with them was when they were bad-mouthing Australia," he says. "The interrogators started bad-mouthing Australia and it was the only time I think he ever got riled up with them."
Earlier this year, Hicks wrote to Prime Minister John Howard, Ruddock and Downer declaring his commitment to the country and intention to be a model citizen. In the letter, Hicks said he was not the same person he was three years ago and wanted to further his studies, live a lawabiding life with his family, and see his two children.
Shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon says she has no confidence in consular reports about Hicks' living conditions. The visits, 17 in all, were irregular and with Hicks having refused a recent visit, it was clear the relationship between him and Australian officials had broken down.
Responding to evidence to the Senate Estimates Committee on October 31 that Hicks was not being held in solitary confinement, Mori says: "I don't know what else you'd call it."
Geoff McDonald of the Attorney-General's Department's security law branch told senators that Hicks was not in solitary confinement and that conditions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay "are equivalent to a maximum-security facility in the US".
"He is in a single-occupancy cell," McDonald continued. "The cells in the general block area have windows providing natural light. He continues to have access to an exercise facility in a group area. During those exercise periods, he can communicate with others. In fact, his conditions are quite similar to those who are in custody awaiting trial for terrorism offences."
Mori says the account given to the committee was "a halftruth". "If you see what's in (US maximum security) cells, they have open windows to the hallway. With Hicks, they cover it up. In the US, they have clear glass to see outside, which Hicks doesn't have. They also get comfort items to help them endure that isolation. Some of them have TVs, you know, Walkmans, as many books as they can fit in their cell, those type of activities which David doesn't have. So, in some aspects, his conditions are more severe than in our maximum security prisons. His access to books in limited.
"They also can have family visits and weekly phone calls. His family visits are only when there's a hearing and he's been lucky to get phone calls once every six months. Yes, it's similar, but his conditions are worse than maximum security in the US.
"Hicks is allowed out of his cell for up to 90 minutes a day, including showering time. If there was an English-speaking detainee in the adjacent exercise area, which is smaller than a squash court, then yes, he might have some interaction," Mori says.
"He does not have a window. It's a piece of frosted glass. When I saw him last, the lights were being left on 24 hours a day. The way they punish him is to take away his toilet paper."
At last count, 340 detainees held at Guantanamo had been repatriated to their country of origin. Of the 434 who remain alongside Hicks, a further 110 have been judged as eligible for release. In a statement last month, the US Department of Defence said: "Departure of these remaining detainees approved for transfer or release is subject to ongoing discussions between the United States and other nations. The United States does not desire to hold detainees for any longer than necessary."
Roxon says the Australian Government's handling of Hicks' case is driven by an excessive zeal to back the US in its war on terror.
"If Hicks can't be tried in a proper court process, then he should be released," she says. "I think the Government sees it as a symbol of being tough on terror. If we are going to be tough on terror, that means we can't throw out all the things that make this democracy with it, or else the purpose of having the fight seems to be gone."
Howard maintains that Hicks should face a military commission because he allegedly "resumed his activities" with al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks.
"I am not happy about the time that is being taken, but people should understand that if he is brought back to Australia he can't be tried for these offences because they were not offences under Australian law at the time they are alleged to have taken place."
But Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg says the passage of time and the resulting loss of evidence means Hicks could not have a fair trial. "The Federal Government's inactivity and refusal to do anything is just extraordinary. There's an Australian citizen in the most appalling circumstances and the Government has done nothing to assist," he says.
Bugg says it appeared that political considerations rather than principle lay behind the Government's stance. "Because of that, the Government and the minister involved deserve to be condemned."
Meanwhile, Mori heads to Guantanamo with no good news for his client. He says he honestly has no idea when Hicks' trial might proceed, and the most optimistic prosecution estimate is next July, deep into his sixth year of prison.
"It's like every time a carrot is held out before the Australian Government, they seem to chase after it, instead of deciding to stand up for Hicks," he says.
Asked why the US continues to hold Hicks, he says: "You're asking the wrong question. It's not that America is pulling, Australia is pushing. And why? Because Hicks has not violated Australian law, which is the most bizarre rationale for abandoning one of your citizens.
"The whole system is about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it's not about David Hicks, nobody cares. Nobody in America cares about David Hicks. Hicks is there because of the Australian Government. All they have to do is ask to bring him home."
Bring Hicks Home - how you can help
To be jailed for five years in Victoria you will need to kill someone while drunk driving, or be convicted of rape or manslaughter.
Once in prison, to be placed in solitary confinement you will need to be among the most violent, or the highly vulnerable.
David Hicks has not been convicted, but he has been jailed — for fi ve years, much of it in solitary confi nement, out of reach of his family and supporters.
He is an Australian citizen who has trained with terrorists, but he has broken no Australian law. By any measure, he has done his time.
Since 2002, hundreds of men like him have departed Guantanamo for countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These countries have included Albania, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Yemen.
Even the fresh charges against Hicks have been delayed. After the US Supreme Court handed down the landmark legal decision in the case of Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the charges against Hicks were negated by the finding that the commissions were illegal. The new charges cannot be filed until regulations are passed by the US Secretary of Defence, a position thrown into turmoil by the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, who is soon to be replaced by a former CIA director, Robert Gates. Mori says the initial charges against Hicks should reassure Australians that Hicks, who has abandoned his Muslim beliefs, was not a terrorist threat.
"I think people were expecting David would be charged with killing somebody, or planting a bomb, yet he wasn't," Mori says. "What were the specifics? He was guarding a tank, he went to training camps . . . you expect they would then say he then engaged in combat and shot someone, but they don't because he did not do anything."
When Mori visits Hicks at Camp Five at the Guantanamo Bay military prison early this week, it will be the prisoner's first contact since October, when the alarm was raised over Hicks' deteriorating physical condition. Sent back into virtual solitary confinement in March this year, Hicks, 31, was said to be suffering depression and a range of physical problems, including fluctuating weight, poor eyesight and back pain.
Hicks has not practised Islam for two to three years. He is patriotic to Australia and jumped to the defence of Australia when taunted during an interrogation, Mori says.
"The only time I think David was cross with them was when they were bad-mouthing Australia," he says. "The interrogators started bad-mouthing Australia and it was the only time I think he ever got riled up with them."
Earlier this year, Hicks wrote to Prime Minister John Howard, Ruddock and Downer declaring his commitment to the country and intention to be a model citizen. In the letter, Hicks said he was not the same person he was three years ago and wanted to further his studies, live a lawabiding life with his family, and see his two children.
Shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon says she has no confidence in consular reports about Hicks' living conditions. The visits, 17 in all, were irregular and with Hicks having refused a recent visit, it was clear the relationship between him and Australian officials had broken down.
Responding to evidence to the Senate Estimates Committee on October 31 that Hicks was not being held in solitary confinement, Mori says: "I don't know what else you'd call it."
Geoff McDonald of the Attorney-General's Department's security law branch told senators that Hicks was not in solitary confinement and that conditions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay "are equivalent to a maximum-security facility in the US".
"He is in a single-occupancy cell," McDonald continued. "The cells in the general block area have windows providing natural light. He continues to have access to an exercise facility in a group area. During those exercise periods, he can communicate with others. In fact, his conditions are quite similar to those who are in custody awaiting trial for terrorism offences."
Mori says the account given to the committee was "a halftruth". "If you see what's in (US maximum security) cells, they have open windows to the hallway. With Hicks, they cover it up. In the US, they have clear glass to see outside, which Hicks doesn't have. They also get comfort items to help them endure that isolation. Some of them have TVs, you know, Walkmans, as many books as they can fit in their cell, those type of activities which David doesn't have. So, in some aspects, his conditions are more severe than in our maximum security prisons. His access to books in limited.
"They also can have family visits and weekly phone calls. His family visits are only when there's a hearing and he's been lucky to get phone calls once every six months. Yes, it's similar, but his conditions are worse than maximum security in the US.
"Hicks is allowed out of his cell for up to 90 minutes a day, including showering time. If there was an English-speaking detainee in the adjacent exercise area, which is smaller than a squash court, then yes, he might have some interaction," Mori says.
"He does not have a window. It's a piece of frosted glass. When I saw him last, the lights were being left on 24 hours a day. The way they punish him is to take away his toilet paper."
At last count, 340 detainees held at Guantanamo had been repatriated to their country of origin. Of the 434 who remain alongside Hicks, a further 110 have been judged as eligible for release. In a statement last month, the US Department of Defence said: "Departure of these remaining detainees approved for transfer or release is subject to ongoing discussions between the United States and other nations. The United States does not desire to hold detainees for any longer than necessary."
Roxon says the Australian Government's handling of Hicks' case is driven by an excessive zeal to back the US in its war on terror.
"If Hicks can't be tried in a proper court process, then he should be released," she says. "I think the Government sees it as a symbol of being tough on terror. If we are going to be tough on terror, that means we can't throw out all the things that make this democracy with it, or else the purpose of having the fight seems to be gone."
Howard maintains that Hicks should face a military commission because he allegedly "resumed his activities" with al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks.
"I am not happy about the time that is being taken, but people should understand that if he is brought back to Australia he can't be tried for these offences because they were not offences under Australian law at the time they are alleged to have taken place."
But Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg says the passage of time and the resulting loss of evidence means Hicks could not have a fair trial. "The Federal Government's inactivity and refusal to do anything is just extraordinary. There's an Australian citizen in the most appalling circumstances and the Government has done nothing to assist," he says.
Bugg says it appeared that political considerations rather than principle lay behind the Government's stance. "Because of that, the Government and the minister involved deserve to be condemned."
Meanwhile, Mori heads to Guantanamo with no good news for his client. He says he honestly has no idea when Hicks' trial might proceed, and the most optimistic prosecution estimate is next July, deep into his sixth year of prison.
"It's like every time a carrot is held out before the Australian Government, they seem to chase after it, instead of deciding to stand up for Hicks," he says.
Asked why the US continues to hold Hicks, he says: "You're asking the wrong question. It's not that America is pulling, Australia is pushing. And why? Because Hicks has not violated Australian law, which is the most bizarre rationale for abandoning one of your citizens.
"The whole system is about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it's not about David Hicks, nobody cares. Nobody in America cares about David Hicks. Hicks is there because of the Australian Government. All they have to do is ask to bring him home."
Bring Hicks Home - how you can help
To be jailed for five years in Victoria you will need to kill someone while drunk driving, or be convicted of rape or manslaughter.
Once in prison, to be placed in solitary confinement you will need to be among the most violent, or the highly vulnerable.
David Hicks has not been convicted, but he has been jailed — for fi ve years, much of it in solitary confi nement, out of reach of his family and supporters.
He is an Australian citizen who has trained with terrorists, but he has broken no Australian law. By any measure, he has done his time.
Since 2002, hundreds of men like him have departed Guantanamo for countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These countries have included Albania, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Yemen.
Australian lawyers launch court bid to secure David Hicks’s release from Guantánamo
by Richard Phillips via sam Friday December 15, 2006 at 09:47 PM
The ongoing imprisonment of Hicks, which is designed to psychologically destroy him, has further underscored the contempt for legal precedent and democratic rights that characterises the entire Australian political establishment.
Last week, a few days before thousands of people demonstrated in Australian cities to demand the immediate release of David Hicks from Guantánamo Bay, his lawyers were granted a federal court hearing on December 15 aimed at forcing the Howard government to formally demand the US repatriate the young Australian.
Hicks’s lawyers will argue today in Sydney that the government has a constitutional duty to protect Hicks and wants the court to rule on Canberra’s claims that it cannot request his release because he has not broken any Australian laws. This, they argue, is “irrelevant”, “improper” and was not a consideration in the release from Guantánamo of British prisoners in 2004 or Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib in January 2005.
While it is unlikely to secure Hicks’s freedom, the court action is another component in the growing movement against the Howard government and its violation of Hicks’s basic rights.
David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in November 2001 during the American invasion of the country. In December the 26-year-old father of two was sold to the US military, which subjected him to a series of violent interrogations in Afghanistan, before transferring him—bound, gagged and hooded—to Guantánamo in January 2002.
He is now one of the longest-serving prisoners at the infamous jail, enduring physical and psychological torture, extended solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and various other criminal techniques to break his will. Cut off from any legal assistance and family contact for almost 18 months, in June 2004 he was served with bogus charges of aiding the enemy, conspiracy and attempted murder.
The five-year hell endured by Hicks is a direct result of Canberra’s refusal to demand his repatriation. Australia is the only government in the world not to request the release of its citizens from Guantánamo.
As is now clear to tens of thousands of ordinary Australians, the Howard government has used Hicks as another means of demonstrating its unswerving support for the Bush administration and the so-called “war on terror”.
Since his capture Canberra has sanctioned every violation of Hicks’s basic rights—and suppressed freedom of information action to reveal its collaboration with US authorities—while claiming that the young Australian is in good health and being treated well. The Howard government continues to deny mounting evidence from international human rights bodies, former US military prosecutors and other firsthand witnesses about the illegal activities in Guantánamo. >>>cont
Hicks’s lawyers will argue today in Sydney that the government has a constitutional duty to protect Hicks and wants the court to rule on Canberra’s claims that it cannot request his release because he has not broken any Australian laws. This, they argue, is “irrelevant”, “improper” and was not a consideration in the release from Guantánamo of British prisoners in 2004 or Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib in January 2005.
While it is unlikely to secure Hicks’s freedom, the court action is another component in the growing movement against the Howard government and its violation of Hicks’s basic rights.
David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in November 2001 during the American invasion of the country. In December the 26-year-old father of two was sold to the US military, which subjected him to a series of violent interrogations in Afghanistan, before transferring him—bound, gagged and hooded—to Guantánamo in January 2002.
He is now one of the longest-serving prisoners at the infamous jail, enduring physical and psychological torture, extended solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and various other criminal techniques to break his will. Cut off from any legal assistance and family contact for almost 18 months, in June 2004 he was served with bogus charges of aiding the enemy, conspiracy and attempted murder.
The five-year hell endured by Hicks is a direct result of Canberra’s refusal to demand his repatriation. Australia is the only government in the world not to request the release of its citizens from Guantánamo.
As is now clear to tens of thousands of ordinary Australians, the Howard government has used Hicks as another means of demonstrating its unswerving support for the Bush administration and the so-called “war on terror”.
Since his capture Canberra has sanctioned every violation of Hicks’s basic rights—and suppressed freedom of information action to reveal its collaboration with US authorities—while claiming that the young Australian is in good health and being treated well. The Howard government continues to deny mounting evidence from international human rights bodies, former US military prosecutors and other firsthand witnesses about the illegal activities in Guantánamo. >>>cont
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home