Hicks could be free in 9 months
31/03/2007 14:31 - (SA)
Sydney - The father of convicted terrorist David Hicks said on Saturday that he was relieved his son would serve out his sentence in his homeland.
Hicks was due to be sent back to Australia to serve nine months in jail and could be a free man by New Year's Day.
"The bottom line of all this is that at least he's back home. He's out of that hell hole," Terry Hicks told Australian media.
Hicks, 31, who has spent five years at Guantanamo Bay, was sentenced by a United States military commission on Friday to seven years' jail after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism.
He made the plea after reaching an agreement with US military prosecutors.
The commission suspended six years and three months of the sentence, meaning Hicks would serve just nine months in an Australian prison.
Hicks is the first war crimes suspect to be convicted among the hundreds of foreign captives held at the US's Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba.
'Government should have backed him'
His father, who spearheaded a campaign to have his son returned to Australia, said the sentence was better than it could have been, but that his son's case was never properly tested in court.
"It's a real shame David had to go through this way to get released when he should have had the Australian government standing up for Australia's citizens' rights," he told Australian Associated Press.
Terry Hicks said his son had been "through hell" and should never have been made to endure the conditions at Guantanamo Bay.
Australia, a close US ally, refused to ask for Hicks to be returned home because he could not be charged with any offence under its laws.
But conservative Prime Minister John Howard, facing a tough election later this year and under growing public pressure to bring Hicks back, complained to Washington about the long delay in putting the Australian on trial.
Sentence 'helps Howard'
Howard said on Saturday that he believed Hicks had pleaded guilty because the US military had a strong case against him.
"He's not a hero in my eyes and he ought not to be a hero in the eyes of any people in the Australian community," Howard told reporters in Sydney.
"The bottom line will always be that he pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation."
Hicks, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, acknowledged that he had trained with al-Qaeda, fought against US allies in Afghanistan in 2001 for two hours, and then sold his gun to flee to Pakistan.
Hicks' defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said his client had gained certainty about a return to Australia from his plea.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, a fierce critic of Hicks' detention, said the sentence was simply aimed at helping Howard weather political unrest.
Hicks' plea agreement bars him from speaking to the media for one year and requires him to give the Australian government any money received for the rights to his story.
- Reuters
David Hicks supporterPhoto by Karen Eliot
Australia Guantánamo Bay prisoner David Hicks was sentenced Friday by a special military court after pleading guilty to providing material support to the Taliban. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but will only need to complete nine months of his penalty, most of it back in Australia, under the terms of his plea agreement.

Hicks, who has been detained for more than 5 years, is to be transferred to Australia within 60 days. The plea bargain also forbids Hicks from speaking to the media for one year after his sentence, suing the U.S. government for alleged abuse during his imprisonment, or appealing his sentence. The deal also mentions that he should not profit from selling his story. These terms were criticised by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as a "modern cutting out of his tongue", with prosecutors using the leverage of a plea deal to stifle information and public debate about the controversial detention process.

David's father, Terry Hicks, responded that he was glad that his son was returning home, but also told Australian Broadcasting Corp.: 

Prosecutor Marine Lt. Col. Kevin Chenail asked for the maximum sentence, referring to Hicks by his pseudonym 'Muhammad Dawood'. He told the panel of military officers that, "Today in this courtroom, we are on the front lines of the global war on terror... The enemy is sitting at the defense table. We are face to face with the enemy... who was trying to kill Americans."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters in Sydney  that:


Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown suggested yesterday that the speech restrictions in the plea deal were put in place as a deliberate attempt to meddle in upcoming elections. "Of course it's a fix," said Brown. "The message has gone very clearly from Canberra to Washington to Guantanamo Bay: don't allow Hicks to be released until after the elections and certainly don't allow him to speak."

Howard disputed that interpretation of events. "We didn't impose the sentence, the sentence was imposed by the military commission and the plea bargain was worked out between the military prosecution and Mr Hicks's lawyers, and the suggestion...that it's got something to do with the Australian election is absurd."