Guilty Plea Was Bid for Freedom: Lawmakers

Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks pleaded guilty to terrorism charges to speed up his return home and to escape a flawed system of US military justice, Australian lawmakers said yesterday.

“His guilty plea is simply a plea for release, for exit from the inhumane Guantanamo Bay gulag. That’s a human response,” Greens Senator Bob Brown said.

After five years in detention, Hicks, 31, unexpectedly pleaded guilty before a newly constituted US Military Commission hearing to a charge of helping Al-Qaida fight American troops and their allies in 2001 during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner, had faced life imprisonment if convicted on the charge of providing material support for terrorism. His guilty plea will bring a more lenient sentence.

Under a long-standing diplomatic agreement, Hicks will serve his sentence in Australia.

Hicks, who wore a khaki prison uniform and was unshackled during the hearing, has grown his hair to chest-length and looked far older and chubbier than at his last hearing in 2004.

He was allowed to meet privately in the court building with his father, Terry Hicks, and sister Stephanie, who were flown to the base by the US military for Monday’s hearing.

Hicks, the first of the 385 Guantanamo prisoners to be charged in what are formally called military commissions, wants only to return to Australia, settle down and see his two children, his father said.

The chief military tribunal prosecutor, Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, said Hicks could learn his sentence by the end of the week and could be back in Australia by the end of the year.

John Howard, Australia’s conservative prime minister and a close ally of US President George W. Bush, strongly supported the military tribunals but, under growing political pressure at home, had recently complained to Washington about the long delay in bringing Hicks to trial.

Howard said yesterday the Australian government welcomed the latest development and progress towards resolving the Hicks case.

Agencies

(c) 2007 China Daily; North American ed.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.