"Testimony 'shows Hicks was political pawn'
AAP 29/4/2006
"The former chief prosecutor of the US military commissions
at Guantanamo Bay said overnight he would not have pursued
Hicks because the case against the Australian was not serious enough.
The ex-prosecutor, Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, told a pre-trial
hearing for another Guantanamo Bay inmate he had "inherited" the
Hicks case and wanted to focus on cases serious enough to merit
20-year jail sentences, with the Australian's case not meeting
that mark.
Davis also said the commissions were tainted by political
influence and evidence obtained through prisoner abuse."
It was an outrage that Howard refused to stand up for an
Australian citizen held without trial for years, when Britain
and other civilized nations had obtained the release of
their citizens from Bush's torture and gulags.
But to find that the Kangaroo court which finally convened
to railroad Hicks was a political fix is a crime against humanity.
Australians concerned at the abuse of a fellow citizens rights
will want a full inquiry into the two political thugs responsible
for that travesty, George Bush and John Howard.
Local Liberal political tools such as Peter Webb who engaged in
the relentless slander of a fellow Australian, helpless and silenced
in an American Gulag, must be feeling totally ashamed of his gutless
betrayal.
"Hicks, from Adelaide, is the only Guantanamo Bay detainee to
have had his case resolved."
NOT ONE TRIAL HAS CONVICTED A GITMO INMATE!!! It's been years
and the political thugs have not had the guts to put the poor
bastards in a real court because they could not convict them.
Hundreds of inmates, accused by Bush for years of being 'terrorists'
have been released. That's right, illegally held without trial for
YEARS, tortured, and then simply released.
If they were terrorists, Bush should be tried for releasing them, if
not he should be tried for detaining them.
"He avoided trial by pleading guilty at a commission hearing at
Guantanamo Bay in March last year to providing material support for
terrorism."
Hicks didn't plead guilty to 'avoid trial', the previous 'trial'
was thrown out by the US legal system as a fraud, no more have been
held because they would be declared a fraud as well, but as the
Government simply threw Hicks back in a cell, having the Star Chamber
'trial' found guilty would just have meant MORE YEARS OF TORTURE
IN GITMO!!
So the political FIX went in, and now the US General in charge has
admitted that it was POLITICAL INTERFERENCE, not evidence, which
railroaded Hicks
Th4e Howard government not only put refugees in Gulags, but Aussie
citizens as well.
Thank goodness we have a government which has returned basic human
decency and integrity to replace those vicious and immoral tory
war criminals.
"Hicks was sentenced to seven years' jail with all but nine months
suspended under a plea bargain which also secured his return to
Australia to serve out the sentence.
He was released from South Australia's Yatala Prison last December.
Hicks father, Terry Hicks, and Australian lawyer David McLeod today said
they were not surprised by Davis' comments.
"We have been saying this for quite a long while," Terry Hicks said."
What has changed here is that the US General who was in charge
of the process has Blown the Whistle on Bush and Howard's political
fix.
Howard is a traitor and all the liberals who went along with it
are gutless political maggots.
"Most of the evidence was gained under pretty rough treatment and also
there was political influence, particularly towards the elections."
Mr McLeod said Hicks was a political pawn from the time he was captured
among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.
"The whole push to charge him was a political process in itself," Mr
McLeod said.
"The only reason that he was charged in the first place was because of
political pressure that was brought to bear probably by the Australian
government.
"But certainly the wash-up of it was completely politically tainted."
Mr Mcleod said "the only reason that David Hicks is in Australia now"
was public opinion.
"The Australian government had become intransigent. Public opinion was
the only thing that would make them react," he said.
"Until we got 51 per cent of the people calling for Hicks' return,
(former prime minister John) Howard wouldn't budge."
For his betrayal of Australians Howard should be publicly
disgraced and shunned... no statues, no monuments, not even
an outback dunny named after him.
He should make a public apology to those he betrayed, including
Vivian Solon and the Aussie citizens illegally detained and deported,
and then leave in exile.
"Once that public opinion dial had gone over the 50 per cent mark, the
Australian government did everything it possibly could, in its view, to
push the matter along.
"It was obvious they wanted Hicks off the front page ... it didn't work,
it didn't get them re-elected, but it gave them one less fire to put out."
Davis made his remarks in a pre-trial hearing for Salim Hamdan, a
Guantanamo detainee accused of being al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's
driver.
Davis, who quit the war court last year, said the military commissions
were tainted by political influence and evidence obtained through
prisoner abuse.
He told the hearing pressure was ramped up after "high-value" prisoners
with alleged ties to the September 11, 2001, terrorist plot were moved
to Guantanamo from secret CIA custody shortly before the 2006 US
congressional elections and amid the ongoing US presidential campaigns."
AAP
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