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Guantanamo conviction- a David Hicks overturn precedent?
If being a Taliban shooting at enemies is not a crime, then why was David Hicks locked in a South Australian prison? Whether he pled guilty or not, the only thing that David could be tried on has now been found by a Guantanamo Military Tribunal to not be a criminal act.
Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan was cleared overnight of two counts of conspiring with al Qaeda to attack civilians, destroy property, commit murder in violation of the laws of war. No Twin Towers, no USS Cole. Without admissions extracted under torture in Afghanistan, it appears the prosecutors didn't have a leg to stand on
He was convicted of the failsafe charge (imagine if he walked away found guilty of nothing?) the same charge that Hicks plead guilty to, that of providing material support for terrorism. Basically, by acting as Bin Laden's chauffeur, he helped Osama do what Osama did. That, it seems, is about all they could pin on him.
Deputy Chief Defence Council Michael Berrigan says that "The travesty of this verdict now is that had the case gone to trial in 2004 he would have been acquitted of all the charges," There is, though, a greater travesty in the ramifications of this verdict.
It appears to me that the acts that Hamdan has been forund to be not guilty by a jury are the same as the ones that Hicks pled guilty to. Have a look at the allegations of the "material support" laid against Hicks, as reported in the Australian on March 2, 2007:
[extract]
The first specifiation reads Hicks did "intentionally provide material support or resources to an international terrorist organisation engaged in hostilities against the United States, namely al-Qa'ida, which the accused knew to be such an organisation that engaged, or engages, in terrorism, and, that the conduct of the accused took place in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict, namely al-Qa'ida, or its associated forces against the US or its coalition partners".
The second specification reads Hicks did "provide material support or resources to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism, that the accused knew or intended that the material support or resources were to be used for those purposes, that the conduct of the accused took place in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict, namely al-Qa'ida or its associated forces against the US or its coalition partners."
Hamdan was convicted on only five of the eight counts in the "material support" charge. The BBC correspondent on ABC radio news overnight says that the Tribunal has ruled that for a member of the Taliban to shoot at an enemy soldier is not a war crime.
Here's where it can get interesting for Hicks. Picked up in Afghanistan in 2001 by the Northern Alliance, what' s the most that he could possibly have done? Shot at an enemy soldier. If that's not a crime, then David has been jailed both in Guantanamo and South Australia for something that isn't regarded as criminal. Given that "material support" is a crime introduced retrospectively by the U.S., should Hicks' innocence be as retrospective as the charge?
Having been found guilty by a jury, Hamdan faces one round of appeals at Guantanamo before he can take his case to the Federal Court. If I was South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, I would be following what happens at that point very closely. Given the mood of the US judiciary chances must be pretty good that the convictions will be overturned. At this point it must be likely that David can ask for, and receive, an overturning of his conviction.
American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project staff attorney Ben Wizner, who observed the most recent trial:, says that "In the strange world of Guantánamo justice, even if Hamdan had been acquitted on all charges, he would have been detained indefinitely. Nowhere else in the U.S. justice system can someone be held for life regardless of whether he is convicted or acquitted of a crime. Today's outcome represents nothing more than an illusion of justice."
It appears, then, that when Terry Hicks told us that his son was taking a chance to escape Guantanamo, he was spot-on. Now a free man (apart from the South Australian Government requested control orders) David may receive what he could well consider the first taste of true justice he's encountered in seven years.
By then the Bush Administration, like the Howard Government, will be long gone. I hope the last responsible leader remaining in power, SA Premier and Federal ALP President Mike Rann (ie the boss of the political party that runs the country) does the right thing when the time comes. Apologising would be a good start.
Later this morning, when sentence is passed on Hamdan, the first U.S. Military Tribunal convict since the Second World War, the process of annulling the horrors of Guantanamo will finally have truly begun.
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David Hicks - an Australian tragedy.
I am pleased that the unforgivable treatment of this Australian by the Bush regime and the "me too" Howardists is back on the agenda.
When we forget the media-hype about "terrorism" to excuse that crime against humanity, what is really left?
Any Australian service personnel who have served with Americans, regardless of their wealthy existence, view them as paranoid in the extreme - and it was certainly exhibited in the case of Hicks and Habib. His arrest was childish anxiety at best.
But the real criminals in this scenario were the Howard Liberal/Nationalists.
I do not believe that any other Australian government in my living memory would have acted so disgracefully as did the Howard mob.
The morons, Howard, Ruddock, Downer and of course "Captain Smirk" Costello could not convict him quick enough for trumped up imagined crimes against Australia - and without even breaking one of our laws.
Whatever embarrassment the "Bonzai" (little Bush) Howard could have suffered by honouring his duty to ALL Australians pales into insignificance when considered against the slovenly behaviour of the Howard Fascists.
If we cast our minds back, it was even pretty obvious that the Americans themselves were embarrassed at Howard's "kiss-ass" attitude to what even they considered was an extremely minor issue.
They offered Hicks back to his homeland but this was refused simply because political mileage could be made to increase the over-exaggerated American styled fear of the Australian people.
And, despite being proven that Howard and his chosen "Reich Fuhrers" had lied their hearts out, some people still believe to this day that David Hicks was a "terrorist"!
The media elects governments these days and we can thank our lucky stars that the Rudd led Labor Party received the fair go that he had asked for.
It was most appropriate that a disgraced Howard should lose his seat, his government and travel to his ancestor's homeland of America, to be feted by the Military/Corporate.
Well might he sing "God bless America" because he certainly did not bless Australia.
David Hicks cannot contest the powers that be - his deal with the illegal American Military Commission in Cuba was his only way out.
Guard duty
"Hicks charged with guarding a bloody tank"
For the Taliban.
By association..
Bigger than christ...
Eliot, I can't quite get what your getting at in your comment about Hicks being more popular than Adler, Cousins and "God".
Perhaps the press just did a better job of smearing them than they did of Hicks? Ok, not nice people, but their real flaw was being the public eye. Their sins were no worse than the rest of us safer in our privacy or furtiveness.
Anyway, it’s not been about "popularity". It’s been about upholding standards of law and justice. The Gitmo/Kangaroo court thing was such a travesty that even a relatively colourless fellow like Hicks was eventually going to gain sympathy, regardless of how intense the tabloid fear and smear .
It's just not the way people behave or are treated in a supposedly civilised society. A slippery slope.
If they could get away with Hicks, the Boat People, Alvarez and Rau, the Aboriginal Intervention and Dr. Haneef (even Bill Henson?) none of the rest of us would be safe from the caprices of executive power free of accountability ever again. That's why the battle had to be fought recently, as it was against McCarthyism in the fifties.
Hicks charged with guarding a bloody tank
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20442.htm
And look at this. Hamdan had to be found guilty because the commission decided that they could not leave people locked up all those years without finding them guilty of something, anything. He could still spend the whole of his life in Gitmo even though the Supreme Court decision of Hamdan is still legal in the US and it stated that the commissions were illegal.
Now to Hicks. He could not have fired at any foreign soldiers in September 2001 or October 2001 as claimed because there were no foreign soldiers in Afghanistan on the ground until December and then only a few in Kabul, certainly none were in the south of Afghanistan for a year or so.
Hicks was charged with guarding a tank at Kandahar airport that had been closed for 20 years during various years and the tank had not gone anywhere in all those years either.
Now that some on those illegal commissions though have found that shooting at an invading enemy is not a crime, as it never has been, it will make it even harder to justify any more of these insane trials.
Rubbery figures
On your own figures then Eliot - David Hicks is unpopular with about 75 Australians give or take a few !.
This Gitmo mess really is going to fall apart eventually, but not well into a second term Obama presidency (if it happens). If Obama wins and wins convincingly it will signal that Americans want change in a big way and the end of Republican rule for over a decade. That's at least how long it will take to clean up the messes of the Bush regime. The Nixon era will look like a child's tea party by comparison ( and some of the same Nixon evil-doers are currently now in charge but about to be booted).
Hicks is playing the game well and keeping his head down. I don't know whether Hicks had a surface to air missile launcher, a tank or a pop gun but as he wasn't charged in connection with any of those matters they mean nothing.
The legal ramifications of course are immense and if the Yanks decide to claim back their system of law as the Constitution meant it to be administered there are interesting times ahead. Bush will need to be handing out presidential pardons like confetti before he leaves office and Obama will probably grant George W. one but it's still a fascinating time ahead.
Rodney Adler, too.
Peter Hindrup: "Talk about a dead hand! In this 'court' the poor bastard never had a chance."
He was actually acquitted of the more serious charges, so obviously he did have a chance.
He was convicted of giving support to terrorism. I suppose you could argue the surface to air missiles found in his possession were actually substitute cigarette lighters or something. Wouldn't surprise me if that became the standard explanation.
Just an update on David Hicks, he was recently voted the fourth least trurtworthy person in Australia in a random sample of 750 Australians
A real winner, David.
Poor old Alan Bond never got a look in?
David: Poor old Alan Bond never got a look in?
The first were Howard, Ruddard And??? :- )))
That was why I titled it ' Better than expected'.
David Hicks? opposed his being held without trial ----- wouldn't want to be within a mile of him! ( Based only upon how I 'read' people.) An idiot, and I doubt very much that he ever was anything .... the pic of him hold a rocket launcher is on a level with the sitting on fake mechanical bucking bull pics people have of themselves.
The rocket's red glare
When I figure out what's what, Eliot, I'll get back to you about those missiles. My understanding at the moment is that those missiles are part of the confusing over the directive given by the presiding judge over the "enemy combatant" status.
In spite of all the time we've spent thrashing this out, the Tribunal seems to have ignored you and decided that Taliban fighters were something like soldiers in a war and that taking potshots at the U.S. planes invading their country's airspace was a permissible act of warfare. If that's the case, 'twasn't terrorism to be carting the rockets round Afghanistan.
Hopefully reports coming in today will clarify. Apparently there was some confusiion at the delivery of the verdict, the jury allowed to rewrite a little to make themselves clearer, the judge calling for an orange highlighter, stuff like that. I was up till five reading incoming reports and by then hadn't gotten further.. having just resurfaced I don't even know yet if the sentence has been passed.
You never know, the US definition of what is terrorism and what is warfare may become a little clearer after today. If not tomorrow, then at least when the case reaches the US Federal Court. Cripes, the War On Terror might have to be renamed The War.
A little better effort than I expected
Talk about a dead hand! In this 'court' the poor bastard never had a chance. Not that it was ever intended that he did have!
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