According to Habib, Hicks was more susceptible to torture and to ill-treatment than the general run of Gitmo inmates.

Moreover, in an interview Terry Hicks mentioned that his son David was vilified and ostracised by other inmates as an informer. Hicks may indeed have been an informer, the Gitmo authorities may have spread that rumour for their own purposes, or Hicks may hve been the victim of racist attitudes among other inmates.

It could well be argued that Hicks was therefore the perfect first defendant for these Military commissions. Offer Hicks a deal in return for a coerced “confession” and he’ll jump at it.

This morning it was revealed that Hicks’s plea bargain was stitched up in the Pentagon over the heads of the prosecutors. This may or may not be a good cop/bad cop routine.

However, the bottom line is:

a. The military commission process has had its first case,
b. Other inmates now know that it is possible to get a soft result.
c. An importunate John howard has been mollified.
d. The RWDB choir will believe the veracity of Hicks’s “confessions”.
e. Most importantly, the Hicks process provides a convenient way of minimising the continuing scandal in US domestic politics of Gitmo and the Military Commission process.

Alistair Nicholson seems to think something stinks, in the land of malodorous Ratfinkdom, the deal stitched up could have a whiff of caveat emptor in its odiferousness.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/our-own-laws-condemn-hicks-trial/2007/04/01/1175366072889.html?page=2

There is a further observation that I would make and it again involves the strongest possible criticism of the Government and of the Attorney-General in particular. Mr Ruddock had been suggesting that the remedy for Hicks’ release lay in his own hands, and that remedy was to plea bargain. This was a cynical misuse of power unworthy of our first law officer. He well knew that unless the Government intervened, as it was morally obliged to do, and if Hicks contested the charges, it was highly likely that regardless of the outcome, it would be years more in Guantanamo Bay before any challenge to the legality of the second commission could be determined.

It follows that with the connivance of the Australian Government, Hicks was placed in an impossible position to which there was only one possible solution, which he took. As a lawyer, I would have advised him to do so regardless of any question of guilt. It follows that his plea of guilty means nothing, nor do any carefully scripted admissions he might have made.

One might ask why was this deal done? There can be little doubt that at a very late stage and faced with increasingly hostile public opinion, the Australian Government pressured the US Government to bring this trial on as quickly as possible. Neither government wanted him returning to Australia making allegations about torture and ill treatment, or the process to which he had been subjected. The answer was to devise a sentence that would ensure his silence, at least until after the Australian election and preferably for many years after.

One thing is for sure, deals made under duress are not worth the paper they’re written on: this Stalinesque show trial in its aftermath has a long and and slow burning fuse.

anyway, as this amusing YouTube comp shows, Alexander Downer has also pleaded guilty, repeatedly.

Bob Brown is speaking at a Free David Hicks rally in Melbourne on April 21.

Bob Brown’s Senate candidates will benefit from Bob speaking truth to power on the Hicks stitch up. Might even get his party balance of power at this year’s federal election. At least this time Bob wasn’t flying-wedged by Howard’s heavies as he was when he tried to present Bush-The-Imbecile with a written petition on the floor of parliament.

In the meantime Sir Rodney Rudd is busy breaking his “spear” into even smaller pieces lest voters think he should show a bit of ticker in regard to Hicks’ show trial and its aftermath. Yesterday’s Alan Ramsay piece in the SMH showed how hard Rudd is prepared to fight to save his hagiography. It is a great disappoinment that Rudd doesn’t display a bit of the same mongrel over David Hick’s treatment.

PS Good on you, site techies, for getting LP rolling again. There’s no Oz based blogsite to match it.

Come to think of it, what happens if he does talk to the media, from his South Australian jail cell? What is the Government going to do, ship him back to Guantanamo?

Indeed, if might be in Howard’s interests if Hicks did talk to the media. He is something of a loose cannon, after all. If he says he was tortured, Howard will respond, “he would say that”, and most of the general public will agree. If Hicks something like, “long live Osama”, and he might, Howard will respond, “see, we were right about him all along”.

Just imagine what Ratty doesn’t want you to know. It’s probably worse than you are capable of imagining.

Think about that when you line up at your children’s school to vote.

Now if he’d been addressing Hicks’ and his al Qaeda mates’ actions, he may have had a point!

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Al Qaeda operative, told a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last weekend about his involvement in a series of terrorist plots. The transcript is below:

I would like to repeat that I am fully and utterly guilty. I am guilty of having been the organizer, second only to Trotsky, of that block whose chosen task was the killing of Stalin. I was the principal organizer of Kirov’s assassination. The party saw where we were going, and warnedus; Stalin warned as scores of times; but we did not heed these warnings.We entered into an alliance with Trotsky.

Oops. Wrong transcript. Mohammed’s actual speech runs as follows:

The BBC reports that the plea deal also involves Hicks saying he has never been mistreated in custody.

The Australian had previously alleged he was beaten by US forces after his capture in Afghanistan and that he had been sedated before learning of the charges against him.

Addressing the tribunal, he affirmed he had “never been illegally treated by any persons in the control or custody of the United States” before or after his transfer to Guantanamo in 2002.

Real 1984 stuff.

The more I read about it this morning the closer I get to apoplexy. John Howard says he is “pleased the case is resolved”.

Quoted on the ABC site this morning, the truly execrable Lying Rodent says: “the facts speak for themselves [lie no. 1], despite criticism levelled at the Government for its handling of the case.

“I had wanted him to face justice [lie no. 2] and the only way [lie no. 3] that could happen would be for the military commission hearing to take place [lie no. 4] because it was not possible for him to be tried in Australia,” [lie no. 5] he said.

And here is what Kevvie has got to say for himself:

“We in this country, whether we are the alternative government or the government, are bound by Australian domestic law… It underpins the intergovernmental agreement which the Australian Government has entered into with the United States. As an alternative government, our responsibility is to honour the law and that’s what we propose to do.”

I thought I was dreaming, hearing in “this country”, the nauseous, mealymouthed abrogation of its responsibility from a pseudo-Opposition. Until I heard from Bob Brown: “This is an astonishing political fix between the Howard administration and the Bush administration.

“This is carefully choreographed to have Hicks shut up until after the election.

“That’s because they know that this is an illegal process. It breaches Australia’s standards of democracy, human rights, civil rights.”

Good on ya Bob. A voice in the wilderness. Shame on the parliament of this country. Go and boil your bottoms, I blow my nose at you, so-called prime minister and leader of the opposition, you and all your silly parliamentary k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt! I fart in your general direction!

Hicks will be jailed until after the federal election, with a specific clause where he is not able to speak to the media, written into the sentence especially to protect John Howard. Is this what they call the Rule of Law in this fair brown land? How does that serve the public interest?

Hicks had to confess to terrorism in a self-criticism session before a Yank military tribunal that could not obtain legitimacy even in the US proper, even though he is convicted on a charge of materially aiding terrorists – a charge that was invented after the alleged offence took place.

How does Hicks’s non-combatant service with the Taliban for a week compare to AWB REALLY materially aiding (to the tune of $300 million) the terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein, whose reign was of such a danger to the world that it had to cost half a million lives and a destruction of a country?

Will Kevvie will just sit this one out under the table?

Will, you said

[The ALP] at Federal and State level they have been disgracefully complicit in the introduction of the Howard govt’s ill-conceived anti-terrorism laws.

My oath they have!! The presence of a few ALP members who support your cause does not imply wholehearted support from the whole party.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that trials of war on terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba lack international credibility because of the taint of past treatment of detainees.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070329/pl_afp/usattacksguantanamo_070329185904

No shit Sherlock!

He said he had pressed to get trials moved to the United States “because I felt that no matter how transparent, no matter how open the trials, if they took place in Guantanamo in the international community they would lack credibility.”

Gates comments in testimony before a House appropriations subcommittee come as the
Pentagon is reviving trials of war on terror suspects by special military commissions at Guantanamo.

They would “lack credibility”!!!!!–well FFS, why this “disgraceful silence” from the Right and “lack of support for the human rights” of President Bush to lock up anybody, anytime, for 5 years without trial at Guantanamo Bay???

You could get used to the idea, though, that not everyone in the world agrees with you.