David Hicks to serve nine-month sentence

Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks will be sent home to serve nine months in prison after being sentenced by a military judge at the facility.

Hicks, 31, was sentenced to seven years in jail after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism, but all but nine months of the sentence was suspended.

The ex-kangaroo skinner has been in the prison for five years since his capture in Afghanistan as a Taleban fighter.

Australia's government has reacted coolly to news of his transfer.

Under a plea bargain deal with the prosecution, Hicks could only be sentenced to a maximum of seven years.

The plea deal also specifies that any term beyond nine months be suspended, the judge at the sentencing hearing on Friday evening revealed.

The US must now send Hicks to his home country within 60 days - by 29 May.

"We hope that it happens much quicker than that," said his defence lawyer, Col Michael Mori.

More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6512945.stm

There have been mixed reactions to the sentence handed down to David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks was today sentenced to seven years jail, but will serve only nine months after the rest of the sentence was suspended.

He will serve his time in Australia under a plea deal and must arrive in Australia before May 29, 2007.

Bittersweet victory

Hicks' father said the news was a bittersweet victory and that he should have had a fair trial.

"It's a lot better than 12 years or seven or two or whatever they were touting throughout the night,'' Mr Hicks said.

"(But) it's a real shame David had to go through this way to get released when he should have had the the Australian government standing up for Australia's citizens' rights."

Mr Hicks said his son was forced to undergo a plea-bargain and his case was never properly tested in court.

"Nobody will ever know what the evidence was," he said.

PM's reaction

Prime Minister John Howard said Hicks pleaded guilty to assisting terrorists only because the US military had a strong case against him.

Mr Howard fired back at critics over the controversial military tribunal that tried Hicks, saying: "Whatever may be the rhetorical responses of some and particularly the government's critics, the facts speak for themselves."

"He pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation - namely al-Qaeda.

"He's not a hero in my eyes and he ought not to be a hero in the eyes of any people in the Australian community.

"The bottom line will always be that he pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation.

"He's acknowledged the prosecution could have proved that beyond a reasonable doubt."

Mr Howard also rejected claims that the Australian government influenced the tribunal to deliver a sentence for Hicks that would see him released after the federal election later this year.

Foreign Minister

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said paperwork was already being prepared to bring about the release of Hicks from Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Downer expected Hicks to return to Australia "much sooner" than the 60 day deadline set by a US military commission.

More
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/mixed-reactions-to-hickss-sentence/2007/03/31/1174761804155.html

Terry Hicks today said his son had been "through hell" and should never have been made to endure the conditions at Guantanamo Bay.

"The Americans made David sign a paper to say he was never abused... when we knew he has been - David told us," he said.

Mr Hicks said he believed his son opted for a plea bargain to ensure his release, saying he would have been "crucified and nailed to the wall" if he pleaded not guilty.

"Military commissions aren't the way to go - they're set up to find people guilty and i think it's been proven particularly when the sitting judge can sack two of David's lawyers," he said.

"What I saw of that commission was that nothing had changed from the first time around - it's still the same."

Mr Hicks criticised the gag placed on David from speaking to the media for a year from his sentence.

"It's very strange that will fall during the election," he said.

"John Howard will probably be putting his head up saying 'see, he's a terrorist."'

More
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/sentence-bittersweet-terry-hicks/2007/03/31/1174761800707.html

CANBERRA, Australia — The government would be powerless to reduce any sentence served in an Australian prison by a Guantanamo Bay detainee who this week admitted to aiding al-Qaida, the attorney general said Thursday.

Former kangaroo skinner David Hicks, 31, is likely to be transferred to a prison in his hometown of Adelaide soon after he is sentenced by a U.S. military commission at the U.S. naval base on Cuba this week.

Hicks, who was sent to Guantanamo weeks after his capture by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in December 2001, pleaded guilty this week to a war-crime charge of providing material support to terrorism.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock said an agreement between Washington and Canberra formally came into effect Thursday that would allow Hicks to apply to return to Australia if he were sentenced to prison.

"The arrangement provides for enforcement of the nature and duration of any sentence, so that the Australian government could not unilaterally shorten or dispose of any such sentence," Ruddock told Parliament.

But Hicks' father said his son could use the Australian courts to contest the legality of whatever sentence, if any, is imposed.

"The legal profession aren't happy about the way it has been done," Terry Hicks told reporters on his return to Adelaide from Guantanamo Bay, where he attended his son's hearing.

Australian legal groups have condemned the U.S. military commission system as unfair.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4671445.html

Only America will be able to pardon David Hicks under an agreement it's signed with Australia allowing prisoners to serve their terms on home soil.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock on Thursday elaborated on comments he made on Wednesday that Australia wouldn't be able to alter any sentence imposed on Hicks by a US military commission.

The government last week renewed a prisoner exchange deal with the US which will allow Hicks to serve any custodial sentence imposed by the commission in Australia.

Mr Ruddock said Governor-General Michael Jeffery had signed off on the agreement on Thursday, ensuring Hicks could serve his term at home.

"(It) clears the way for Mr Hicks to apply for transfer should he receive a custodial sentence," he told parliament.

"The arrangement provides for enforcement of the nature and duration of any sentence so that the Australian government could not unilaterally shorten or dispose of any such sentence.

More
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Only-US-can-pardon-Hicks-Ruddock/2007/03/29/1174761617348.html

Mr Hicks said his son's sentence was expected to be known within days.

"The strangest thing out of all this would be what is going to happen when David comes back here," Terry Hicks told reporters on return to Adelaide from Cuba, where he saw his son for the first time in nearly three years.

"He's back on Australian soil yet he's jailed under another country's absolute inadequacies, the way they have handled the situation."

Asked whether there would be legal challenge to Hicks' jailing in Australia, Mr Hicks said: "It may be."

"It depends on the legal profession," he said.

"But the legal profession aren't happy about the way it has been done.

"They might take it on their own that once David is back here, do something - I don't know, we'll just have to wait and see."

Mr Hicks was shocked by his son's guilty plea and had no doubt it was intended purely to get away from Guantanamo Bay, where Hicks has been held since January 2002, a month after his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Mr Hicks said the Yatala jail "will be a five-star hotel" compared with Guantanamo Bay.

"He knows that in particular the way the courts system worked against him and against his lawyers that he's not going to be found not guilty, they are going to nail him to the wall," Mr Hicks said.

"So what David has done, in his best interests... is to plead guilty.

"After the conversations we had with David you could see all he wants to do is get home.

More
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Hicks-may-fight-jail-term-in-Australia/2007/03/29/1174761628394.html

LONDON, March 31 — In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard is facing accusations that the relatively brief sentence and yearlong order of silence on Guantánamo detainee David Hicks resulted from governmental pressure, charges he dismissed as “absurd.”

Mr. Howard is facing a tough re-election fight, with the vote slated for this year. Mr. Hicks had already become an issue in the campaign, and Mr. Howard had made it clear to the Bush administration, including in direct talks with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, how important he felt it was for Mr. Hicks to be returned home.

“Nine months, a gag order for one year — all overlap the coming elections,” Mr. Hicks’s father, Terry, said in a telephone interview from Adelaide. “I’m very suspicious.”

Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens Party and a federal senator, said, “This is more about saving Mr. Howard’s political hide than about justice for Hicks.”

He added in a statement, “It is clearly a political fix arranged between Mr. Howard and the Bush administration to shut up Hicks until after the election in November.”

In comments reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, Mr. Howard said, “We didn’t impose the sentence, the sentence was imposed by the military commission and the plea bargain was worked out between the military prosecution and Mr. Hicks’s lawyers.”

More
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/world/asia/01australia.html?hp