Guilty plea from Hicks buoys Australian government (Roundup)

Mar 27, 2007, 10:51 GMT

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.'