Hicks Pleads Guilty

[The Fool]

Amazing. In a thread where you complain about the rights of a combatant who did not qualify for protected status under Article 4 you have not a word to say about captured POW's (in the full legal sense of Article 4) who are being paraded around in a public spectacle, threatened with being charged as spies, and forced to say things for propaganda (which you accept as the truth without question).

This is a new low for you.

I find it Ironic that you criticise someone for accepting what they say without question and in the same paragraph pronouncing as fact that they were forced to say something for propaganda...

This thread was managing to remain civil, care to help that process by taking a flying leap?

 

[Mycroft]

You can raise any points you want, I made a point, about confessions obtained under duress. If you want to respond to that you can, otherwise, WTF are you on about? Debating something with me that I never raised?

Where in that article does it say the British sailors were made to confess anything?

 

[WildCat]

I find it Ironic that you criticise someone for accepting what they say without question and in the same paragraph pronouncing as fact that they were forced to say something for propaganda...

This thread was managing to remain civil, care to help that process by taking a flying leap?

There is a thread here about the incident. Perhaps if you'd read it you'd learn that the ship which was boarded is still anchored where the boarding occurrd - and it is in Iraqi waters. So when a British sailor is put on TV saying that they were in Iranian waters I can only conclude that the confession was coerced and it is obviously being used for propaganda purposes. YMMV.

Now, back to Hicks. I'm sure when he comes home the guy who left his wife and kids to fight for terrorism and oppression (which he happily admitted to his father before he was captured btw) will be greeted as a hero. You can sing songs in his honor, maybe you can even put a shrimp on the barbie for him.

 

[a_unique_person]

There is a thread here about the incident. Perhaps if you'd read it you'd learn that the ship which was boarded is still anchored where the boarding occurrd - and it is in Iraqi waters. So when a British sailor is put on TV saying that they were in Iranian waters I can only conclude that the confession was coerced and it is obviously being used for propaganda purposes. YMMV.

Exactly the point I was making.

 

[The Fool]

Now, back to Hicks. I'm sure when he comes home the guy who left his wife and kids to fight for terrorism and oppression (which he happily admitted to his father before he was captured btw) will be greeted as a hero. You can sing songs in his honor, maybe you can even put a shrimp on the barbie for him.

Do you have anything to add that is not simply musings about what your imagination tells you? I can assure you that Davis Hicks is most unlikely to get a heroes welcome. He will be famous for a while and will be persued by tacky television shows. The Rupert Murdock owned section of our media does just about everything but draw horns on his pictures....Do you know that his national daily paper described hicks pleading guilty as a triumph for our Prime Minister and his decision to abandon an Australian citizen to whatever pseudo legal lashup you felt like applying to them? A triumph no less!!! But the important thing is rational public opinion pressure in this country is helping to get Australian citizens out of your hands as you seem to be just be happily looking the other way and whistling a happy tune as your executive dismantles your founding principles.

you have cocked this one up....completely. Time to cut a deal and try and save some dignity.

Anyway....you could have a go at the question of ex post facto law if you like.
What is your attitude to that? What did your founding fathers think of it?

 

[a_unique_person]

What an utter farce.

Military judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann asked Hicks if he agreed that he had "never been illegally treated by any persons in the control or custody of the United States" during his detention in Afghanistan and subsequent transfer to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
Hicks replied, "yes."

And as Fool pointed out, this is the 'worst of the worst'?

http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21478967-921,00.html

DAVID Hicks would be committing perjury if he pleaded guilty to being a terrorist just to secure early release from Guantanamo Bay, the chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis has warned.

You can commit perjury, but only when it suits us.

 

[The Fool]

Breaking news, no link yet.

As part of a plea bargain hicks will be sent back to Australia in approx one month, he is to stay in prison in Australia until after the Federal election here.....and be released on new years day. To get this he will plead guilty and make a statement that he has not been mistreated. He will also be barred from talking to the media until after the election....but he is not a political prisoner.

The face saving appears to be sorted...the word guilty is in there, no allegations will be made of mistreatment, he will be silenced until after our election.... but this has nothing to do with a political process, he is not a political prisoner.

Just a final thought....Throughout this entire grubby farce one shining light has been Major Michael Dante (Dan) Mori USMC. When I first heard that the US had appointed a Marine Major as hicks defence I laughed...I thought it was just a new level of farce. Mori has made me eat my words and Americans should be proud of him.

 

[a_unique_person]

In return, he made concessions, including agreeing not to talk to the media for a year. He also promised not to allege mistreatment in US custody, despite earlier claims that he was abused.
The ban on talking to the media appears to have been suggested by the Australian Government, as it would be unconstitutional in the US.

In an election year, he is banned from speaking to the media, till the election is over. Coincidence? Goddam, no way it can just be a coincidence.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/hicks-out-in-9-months/2007/03/31/1174761817901.html

Although the Australian Government pushed for Hicks' time in detention to be counted towards his sentence, the US military refused to concede.
The way around this impasse was to get the Americans to suspend all but nine months of his sentence.
This will cause domestic political problems for the Bush Administration. As a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union said, nine months was what a drink driver might get, not one of the "worst of the worst" terrorists.

And from Robert Richter, QC.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/natio...alinist-theatre/2007/03/31/1174761817919.html

The deal was simple: Go home. Shut up. If you dare to say you had no choice but to plead guilty, the US Military Commission will find you guilty of perjury and will call in a full seven-year sentence, over and above the five you've suffered unconvicted and uncharged. That will mean the Australian Attorney-General may not release you on licence for another seven years, or will — with the additional gags of control orders and other available means — make sure you cannot tell anyone what happened.
Apart from the loss of fundamental guarantees of freedom, another freedom — speech — is garrotted.
The best thing one can say about the process is that one day there may be a reckoning for this despicable episode, in which Australian ministers, all the way down from the Prime Minister, have been party to the commission of grave crimes under the Australian Criminal Code 1995, divisions 104 (Harming Australians Overseas) and 268D (denying a fair trial), because they have been criminally complicit under section 11.2.
By the time the US Supreme Court strikes down the whole festering sore in a couple of years — which most constitutional lawyers believe it will — we can only hope there will be another attorney-general in Australia who will have the guts to authorise proceedings against those who "aided, abetted, counselled or procured" the commission of the crimes to which I have referred. Let us not forget the war crimes trials after World War II, in which the German Nazi judges who prostituted their duty in the service of the political ideology that put them there were put on trial for what they did.

Way to go, Robert Richter.

 

[a_unique_person]

Uproar over Hicks sentence.

US Defence Department lawyer Susan Crawford, who oversees the US military tribunals, bypassed the prosecution to reach a pre-trial agreement directly with the defence.
But her actions, interpreted by some US newspapers as a political favour to Bush ally Prime Minister John Howard in an election year, shocked the prosecutors on the case and the American legal establishment.
Lead prosecutor Colonel Morris "Moe" Davis was kept in the dark about the plea deal. He was astounded by the nine-month sentence, telling The Washington Post: "I wasn't considering anything that didn't have two digits", referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.
Ms Crawford's deal, which includes a gag on Hicks talking to the media for 12 months, also overrode the sentence of the military panel, which had agreed to seven years.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he was not aware that the Australian Government had put any view to the Americans on the length of sentence.

Now the whole issue has descended into farce. The 'tribunal' is open to political manipulation? WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT YOU FWITS? THAT WAS THE WHOLE IDEA!

 

[Davo]

If it is the case that acts commited before the clause in the law can be brought to trial.

Will those in officialdom, who gave material support to terrorists (Mujahadeen fighters, Afghanistan) be prosecuted.Will those people who aided, supported and armed the IRA be prosecuted. I find the whole stance hypocritical, that there can be good and bad terrorists.

I hear also rumours that the US is aiding insurgent groups in Iran currently, this may tie in with the current situation with Iran and the british prisoners. Iran is looking at constructing an oil pipeline to India ( which the US is vehemently opposed to and may be attempting to sabotage) - This is only a hunch, comments appreciated.

 

[gtc]

Just a final thought....Throughout this entire grubby farce one shining light has been Major Michael Dante (Dan) Mori USMC. When I first heard that the US had appointed a Marine Major as hicks defence I laughed...I thought it was just a new level of farce. Mori has made me eat my words and Americans should be proud of him.

He certainly has done well by his client and he has a very distinctive noggin. I suspect it warms the hearts of military phrenologists.

 

[a_unique_person]

If anyone is interested, a current affairs program on the Hicks case that includes a transcript of Hick's interrogation.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1887902.htm

 

[a_unique_person]

Chief Prosecutor says Hicks should never have been charged.

AUSTRALIAN man David Hicks should never have been charged with terror offences, according to Guantanamo Bay's former chief prosecutor.
Colonel Moe Davis, who oversaw the prosecution of Hicks, quit the war court last year.
He testified overnight that evidence for the war crimes tribunals was obtained through prisoner abuse, and political appointees and higher-ranking officers pushed prosecutors to file charges before trial rules were even written.
Col Davis was giving evidence at a pre-trial hearing for Osama bin Laden's driver, Yemeni prisoner Salim Hamdan, in a courtroom at the remote Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.
Since the US began sending foreign captives to Guantanamo in 2002, only one case has been resolved - that of Hicks.

Hicks avoided trial by pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism and served a nine-month sentence as part of a plea negotiated by a Pentagon appointee without the chief prosecutor's involvement.

Col Davis testified that he "inherited" the Hicks case from a previous prosecutor and would not otherwise have charged him because he wanted to focus on cases serious enough to merit 20 years in prison and the Hicks case did not meet that test.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23615613-12377,00.html