Guilty plea from Hicks buoys Australia government (1st Lead)

Mar 27, 2007, 4:31 GMT

An undated handout photograph released on 08 March 2007, shows Australian terror suspect and Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks. EPA/FAIR GO FOR DAVID / HANDOUT

Sydney - The Australian government Tuesday welcomed David Hicks' decision to plead guilty to a charge of providing material support to terrorists at a US war crimes tribunal in Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks, 31, has been in Guantanamo since his capture in Afghanistan during the US-led assault on the Taliban in 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.'

The Adelaide-born Muslim convert faced a maximum of 20 years in prison if he fought the charge and was then convicted. A guilty plea means a reduced sentence and a quick return to Australia.

Hicks could be sentenced and flown to Australia before the end of the week under the terms of an agreement reached with Washington that he be allowed to serve any residual sentence in Australia.

Hicks is the first inmate at the prison camp in Cuba to have his case brought before the military commission set up to try terrorist 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 last summer ruled that the tribunals could not continue unless President George W Bush received explicit authorization from Congress, which he received late last year.

Military prosecutors had 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 Prime Minister John Howard, who had resisted a groundswell of public opinion that he insist on the former kangaroo skinner being repatriated.

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 car thief and drug addict out of Guantanamo regardless of any legal proceedings.

Those who have campaigned to have Hicks released deny his guilty plea is good news for the 11-year-old Howard government.

'The whole thing is an affront to justice,' said Greens leader Bob Brown, who heckled President Bush over the incarceration of Hicks when he addressed the Australian parliament in 2003. 'Hicks' guilt will always be in doubt. The Howard government's guilt in this affair will never be in doubt.'

With time already served, the father-of-two could even return from Guantanamo a free man. If the bargaining doesn't go his way, he would return to a spell in an Australian jail.