Sydney - The Australian government Tuesday welcomed David
Hicks' admission to a US war-crimes tribunal in Guantanamo Bay that
he provided material support to terrorists.
The Muslim convert has been held in the US military prison camp on
the island of Cuba since he was captured in Afghanistan in December
2001.
'I think it brings into sharp focus all of the discussion, debate
and media hype that's gone on with respect to Hicks,' Justice
Minister David Johnston said. 'I'm just saying that there's a stark
contrast between him being a theological tourist and pleading guilty
to aiding terrorists.'
Adelaide-born Hicks faced a maximum of 20 years in prison if he
denied the charge and was then convicted. A guilty plea means a
reduced sentence and a quick return to Australia, where Prime
Minister John Howard's government insists he must serve any remainder
of his jail time.
Colonel Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor at the Guantanamo
US military tribunals, hinted that a much lighter sentence was in
prospect.
'We've said all along that this was not a life-sentence case, so
it'll certainly be something much less than that we ask for,' he told
Australia's ABC Radio. 'Somebody asked a long time ago if it was
possible that he'd be home before the end of the year and if I was a
betting man I would say the odds are pretty good.'
Hicks, 31, is the first Guantanamo inmate to have his case brought
before the military commission set up to try terrorism suspects.
His arraignment hearing marked the resumption of tribunals after
they were halted in 2004 over lawsuits filed in US courts challenging
their legitimacy. The US Supreme Court ruled last summer that the
tribunals could not continue unless President George Bush received
explicit authorization from Congress, which the lawmakers approved
late last year.
Military prosecutors alleged that Hicks attended al-Qaeda training
sessions and travelled to Afghanistan from Pakistan after the
September 11 attacks, to join the fight against the US-led coalition.
They say he was issued with a gun and ammunition at Kandahar airport
and was ready to go into combat against US troops and their allies.
The guilty plea is a relief for Howard, who resisted a groundswell
of public opinion calling on him to press for Hicks' repatriation.
Howard had himself complained to President Bush over delays in
bringing Hicks to trial, and had set a deadline of the middle of this
month for the case to be brought to court.
The guilty plea effectively settles the Hicks case before
campaigning begins for a general election expected in November. The
Labor Party, ahead in the polls, had pledged to get the former drug
addict out of Guantanamo regardless of any legal proceedings.
Those who campaigned to have Hicks released denied that his guilty
plea was good news for the 11-year-old Howard government.
'The whole thing is an affront to justice,' said Greens leader Bob
Brown, who heckled Bush over the incarceration of Hicks when he
addressed the Australian parliament in 2003.
Terry Hicks, who spent three hours with his son inside the prison
at Guantanamo, said David Hicks was so desperate to get out that he
pleaded guilty despite being innocent.
'The detainees yell out abuse at him and they say he's being paid
by the CIA and all this sort of business to spy on them, that sort of
thing,' Terry Hicks said.
'He's under quite a bit of stress through that. He won't go out
into the exercise yards because he been abused verbally from the rest
of the detainees, so that's not good.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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