David Hicks protests
- Thread starter Bobby
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks This website is quoting things pretty much up to date ( at most a couple of days old)nioka said:
I didn't realise that Dick Smith was financing his defence ( filling the massive void left by the Aus Govt)
Of course everything has gone into a new phase with two parallel cases racing to come up with a decision (preliminary hearing of case against Hicks, and locally where the Fed Govt is being taken to task over its inaction). Interesting times - what a movie this one will make
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1866840.htmhttp://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1867125.htm
Downer:- "we're thinking of sending Hicks father and two wives to the hearing - Isn't that big-a-me !"
Terry Hicks:- "who cares if its bloody bigomy or trigomy, that's the least of his problems - and since when did you care about David's welfare?
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"Ideological Quagmires" - had this interesting comment about the USA...(by an american obviously)
http://iq.mythicflow.com/
http://iq.mythicflow.com/
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JuliaJulia said:
Have been offline for a while, so missed your replies.
It's a bit difficult to know what Hicks' side of the story is given he has not had much of a chance to tell it, except perhaps through coercion/torture.
I admit to being a bit amused by the notion he was not an innocent because he was training with or for whom ever.
The worlds "legal" armies train soldiers to kill people (theoretically only other "soldiers), and even tho we should abide by the Geneva Conventions, the reality is that in war situations people do some pretty evil things.
A natural extension of the Hicks case is that it could theoretically allow Iran to "buy" captured US soldiers in Iraq and try them for war crimes in North Korea. It might sound a bit far fetched, but how exactly would the US soldier justify his "legal" presence in Iraq?
In any event, I am not defending what Hicks may have done, or intended to do. I am instead going to bat for justice and fair play to prevail.
I think people like Hicks are misguided and foolish, but I am not sure that warrants them being treated the way he has been, and for as long as he has been mistreated - in both moral and legal senses.
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If David Hicks disliked Americans before, what do you think he feels for them now?
Kauri
E/W Learner
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Hey, if Hicks pleads guilty they will end up owing him time, and he may get to stay in Al Q. as well...
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1868526.htm
We are blindly following the USA into a world where the "lowest common demoninator", sorry , I recall someone used the term "LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR!!" (demonator?)is ... an American GI - some of whom are really bright boys - but equally many are ....
not.
PPS did anyone see that US GI interviewed on Stateline last night ? - Joshua comeone - he refused to play soccer with the head of a decapitated Iraqi , and has since refused to play the GI game anymore. He has had to desert to Canada - otherwise if he goes back he's in big trubel - silenced for a starter, maybe Guantanamo ? - he's trying to get a book out before he's "silenced"
PS Kauri , your previous post "sez it all"
We are blindly following the USA into a world where the "lowest common demoninator", sorry , I recall someone used the term "LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR!!" (demonator?)is ... an American GI - some of whom are really bright boys - but equally many are ....not.
PPS did anyone see that US GI interviewed on Stateline last night ? - Joshua comeone - he refused to play soccer with the head of a decapitated Iraqi , and has since refused to play the GI game anymore. He has had to desert to Canada - otherwise if he goes back he's in big trubel - silenced for a starter, maybe Guantanamo ? - he's trying to get a book out before he's "silenced"
http://abc.net.au/news/world/americas/default.htm
what level of BS are they resorting to now !!!
Julia
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rederob said:
Rob,
Then we have no argument.
Julia
from todays new york times (would have provided the link but sometimes requires registration),
" By RAYMOND BONNER
Published: March 20, 2007
LONDON, March 19 ”” David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit.
While Mr. Hicks did not claim that he was tortured at Guantánamo, he said he was given regular, mysterious injections that “would make my head feel strange.” He also said he witnessed or heard about mistreatment of others there.
A detainee with only one leg was “set upon” by a special military team and its dogs, he said. The man was dragged out of his cell, and there was blood on his face and the cell floor. “It put me in such fear that I just knew I would ‘cooperate’ in any way with the U.S.”
A spokesman for the military commission, Cmdr. J. D. Gordon, described Mr. Hicks’s allegations as “false,” and “completely lacking in merit.”
“Hicks has make a number of allegations in the past, which have proven to be unsubstantiated and completely lacking in merit,” Commander Gordon said.
For example, he said Mr. Hicks had once alleged that he was shackled to the floor for 22 hours a day, which Commander Gordon said was untrue.
Mr. Hicks is Australian, but his mother was born in Britain; he has been seeking citizenship here because he believes that the British government has done more to secure the release of its citizens in Guantánamo than Australia has.
At an American military commission hearing scheduled for March 26, Mr. Hicks will plead not guilty to a single charge of providing material support for terrorism, his military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, has said. The initial charges against Mr. Hicks, including attempted murder and aiding the enemy, have been dropped.
Major Mori’s aggressive defense of Mr. Hicks continues to draw fire from the chief prosecutor of the military commission, Col. Morris Davis. In an e-mail message last week to the judge who oversees the military commissions, Colonel Davis said that Major Mori appeared to have violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits an officer from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other senior officials.
Colonel Davis cited numerous statements by Major Mori on his trips to Australia that he said could be considered insulting or rude. A copy of the message, from Colonel Davis to Judge Susan Crawford, was provided to The New York Times by someone who supports Major Mori.
Major Mori declined to comment on Colonel Davis’s latest criticisms. Earlier this month, after Colonel Davis first voiced disapproval of Major Mori’s conduct, Major Mori said that it might force him to withdraw from the case. Commander Gordon, the commission spokesman, declined to discuss Colonel Davis’s message, calling it “an internal staff matter.”
In Australia, Major Mori is widely credited with having changed the public attitude toward Mr. Hicks. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Hicks was often described in Australia’s tabloids as “Australia’s Taliban.” Now, across the political spectrum, there is pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to have Mr. Hicks returned to Australia soon.
Major Mori has also been praised by former detainees for his representation.
Australian intelligence officials have said that Mr. Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda. For his part, Mr. Hicks said he was seized by the Northern Alliance, which was fighting with the Americans against the Taliban, and was treated well for two weeks.
“When the U.S. interrogators showed up my treatment changed,” Mr. Hicks said in the affidavit, which was filed in December but has remained largely unnoticed.
He said he was interrogated by five Americans, who were dressed in black combat gear without any insignia.
“The U.S. interrogators would question me,” he said, “and after my responses I would be slapped in the back of the head and told I was lying.”
At one point, he said, he was forced to sit on a window ledge, and outside there were six American soldiers with their weapons pointed at him, he wrote.
One interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage.” It was at this point, he said, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators, I might be shot.”
He said was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu.
On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain” when being interrogated.
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically” worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location.
They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,” he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.”
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar.
A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.”
He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Commander Gordon said he had no knowledge of such treatment. Some former detainees have made similar accusations, including Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who was picked up in Pakistan, turned over to the United States and delivered to Egypt, where he says he was badly tortured.
At Guantánamo, Mr. Hicks said he was also shown a picture of Mr. Habib. “In the photo, Habib’s face was black and blue,” Mr. Hicks wrote. “I first thought it was a photo of a corpse,” he said, adding that an interrogator told him that if he did not cooperate he would be sent to Egypt “to suffer the same fate.”
“This regular brutality left me in a heightened state of fear and anxiety about my own safety,” Mr. Hicks wrote in the affidavit.
After Mr. Hicks was formally charged earlier this month, Australian officials said publicly that they hoped a plea bargain allowing Mr. Hicks to come home could be negotiated. Two American officials close to the case said they expected that the deal would be for Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to the one charge, in exchange for the five years he has already been held."
cheers
" By RAYMOND BONNER
Published: March 20, 2007
LONDON, March 19 ”” David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit.
While Mr. Hicks did not claim that he was tortured at Guantánamo, he said he was given regular, mysterious injections that “would make my head feel strange.” He also said he witnessed or heard about mistreatment of others there.
A detainee with only one leg was “set upon” by a special military team and its dogs, he said. The man was dragged out of his cell, and there was blood on his face and the cell floor. “It put me in such fear that I just knew I would ‘cooperate’ in any way with the U.S.”
A spokesman for the military commission, Cmdr. J. D. Gordon, described Mr. Hicks’s allegations as “false,” and “completely lacking in merit.”
“Hicks has make a number of allegations in the past, which have proven to be unsubstantiated and completely lacking in merit,” Commander Gordon said.
For example, he said Mr. Hicks had once alleged that he was shackled to the floor for 22 hours a day, which Commander Gordon said was untrue.
Mr. Hicks is Australian, but his mother was born in Britain; he has been seeking citizenship here because he believes that the British government has done more to secure the release of its citizens in Guantánamo than Australia has.
At an American military commission hearing scheduled for March 26, Mr. Hicks will plead not guilty to a single charge of providing material support for terrorism, his military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, has said. The initial charges against Mr. Hicks, including attempted murder and aiding the enemy, have been dropped.
Major Mori’s aggressive defense of Mr. Hicks continues to draw fire from the chief prosecutor of the military commission, Col. Morris Davis. In an e-mail message last week to the judge who oversees the military commissions, Colonel Davis said that Major Mori appeared to have violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits an officer from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other senior officials.
Colonel Davis cited numerous statements by Major Mori on his trips to Australia that he said could be considered insulting or rude. A copy of the message, from Colonel Davis to Judge Susan Crawford, was provided to The New York Times by someone who supports Major Mori.
Major Mori declined to comment on Colonel Davis’s latest criticisms. Earlier this month, after Colonel Davis first voiced disapproval of Major Mori’s conduct, Major Mori said that it might force him to withdraw from the case. Commander Gordon, the commission spokesman, declined to discuss Colonel Davis’s message, calling it “an internal staff matter.”
In Australia, Major Mori is widely credited with having changed the public attitude toward Mr. Hicks. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Hicks was often described in Australia’s tabloids as “Australia’s Taliban.” Now, across the political spectrum, there is pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to have Mr. Hicks returned to Australia soon.
Major Mori has also been praised by former detainees for his representation.
Australian intelligence officials have said that Mr. Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda. For his part, Mr. Hicks said he was seized by the Northern Alliance, which was fighting with the Americans against the Taliban, and was treated well for two weeks.
“When the U.S. interrogators showed up my treatment changed,” Mr. Hicks said in the affidavit, which was filed in December but has remained largely unnoticed.
He said he was interrogated by five Americans, who were dressed in black combat gear without any insignia.
“The U.S. interrogators would question me,” he said, “and after my responses I would be slapped in the back of the head and told I was lying.”
At one point, he said, he was forced to sit on a window ledge, and outside there were six American soldiers with their weapons pointed at him, he wrote.
One interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage.” It was at this point, he said, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators, I might be shot.”
He said was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu.
On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain” when being interrogated.
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically” worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location.
They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,” he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.”
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar.
A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.”
He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Commander Gordon said he had no knowledge of such treatment. Some former detainees have made similar accusations, including Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who was picked up in Pakistan, turned over to the United States and delivered to Egypt, where he says he was badly tortured.
At Guantánamo, Mr. Hicks said he was also shown a picture of Mr. Habib. “In the photo, Habib’s face was black and blue,” Mr. Hicks wrote. “I first thought it was a photo of a corpse,” he said, adding that an interrogator told him that if he did not cooperate he would be sent to Egypt “to suffer the same fate.”
“This regular brutality left me in a heightened state of fear and anxiety about my own safety,” Mr. Hicks wrote in the affidavit.
After Mr. Hicks was formally charged earlier this month, Australian officials said publicly that they hoped a plea bargain allowing Mr. Hicks to come home could be negotiated. Two American officials close to the case said they expected that the deal would be for Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to the one charge, in exchange for the five years he has already been held."
cheers
I think that Mr Howard not intervening, as Hicks is a Australian...the chance of winning the next election looking slimmer by the hour.....after all....what the US has done, creating a hugh problem for Mr Howard....unlike Mrs Clarke of New Zealand which tells the US exsactly what is what...MR Howard does not stand up against the US...the English did and had their people released..but as Mr Howard does not...he will pay for it in the next election....Australia needs a person who will ,and, it looks Mr Rude will be the man....just the way I see it...even Mr Dick Smith can and does see thathappytown said:from todays new york times (would have provided the link but sometimes requires registration),
" By RAYMOND BONNER
Published: March 20, 2007
LONDON, March 19 ”” David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit.
While Mr. Hicks did not claim that he was tortured at Guantánamo, he said he was given regular, mysterious injections that “would make my head feel strange.” He also said he witnessed or heard about mistreatment of others there.
A detainee with only one leg was “set upon” by a special military team and its dogs, he said. The man was dragged out of his cell, and there was blood on his face and the cell floor. “It put me in such fear that I just knew I would ‘cooperate’ in any way with the U.S.”
A spokesman for the military commission, Cmdr. J. D. Gordon, described Mr. Hicks’s allegations as “false,” and “completely lacking in merit.”
“Hicks has make a number of allegations in the past, which have proven to be unsubstantiated and completely lacking in merit,” Commander Gordon said.
For example, he said Mr. Hicks had once alleged that he was shackled to the floor for 22 hours a day, which Commander Gordon said was untrue.
Mr. Hicks is Australian, but his mother was born in Britain; he has been seeking citizenship here because he believes that the British government has done more to secure the release of its citizens in Guantánamo than Australia has.
At an American military commission hearing scheduled for March 26, Mr. Hicks will plead not guilty to a single charge of providing material support for terrorism, his military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, has said. The initial charges against Mr. Hicks, including attempted murder and aiding the enemy, have been dropped.
Major Mori’s aggressive defense of Mr. Hicks continues to draw fire from the chief prosecutor of the military commission, Col. Morris Davis. In an e-mail message last week to the judge who oversees the military commissions, Colonel Davis said that Major Mori appeared to have violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits an officer from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other senior officials.
Colonel Davis cited numerous statements by Major Mori on his trips to Australia that he said could be considered insulting or rude. A copy of the message, from Colonel Davis to Judge Susan Crawford, was provided to The New York Times by someone who supports Major Mori.
Major Mori declined to comment on Colonel Davis’s latest criticisms. Earlier this month, after Colonel Davis first voiced disapproval of Major Mori’s conduct, Major Mori said that it might force him to withdraw from the case. Commander Gordon, the commission spokesman, declined to discuss Colonel Davis’s message, calling it “an internal staff matter.”
In Australia, Major Mori is widely credited with having changed the public attitude toward Mr. Hicks. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Hicks was often described in Australia’s tabloids as “Australia’s Taliban.” Now, across the political spectrum, there is pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to have Mr. Hicks returned to Australia soon.
Major Mori has also been praised by former detainees for his representation.
Australian intelligence officials have said that Mr. Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda. For his part, Mr. Hicks said he was seized by the Northern Alliance, which was fighting with the Americans against the Taliban, and was treated well for two weeks.
“When the U.S. interrogators showed up my treatment changed,” Mr. Hicks said in the affidavit, which was filed in December but has remained largely unnoticed.
He said he was interrogated by five Americans, who were dressed in black combat gear without any insignia.
“The U.S. interrogators would question me,” he said, “and after my responses I would be slapped in the back of the head and told I was lying.”
At one point, he said, he was forced to sit on a window ledge, and outside there were six American soldiers with their weapons pointed at him, he wrote.
One interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage.” It was at this point, he said, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators, I might be shot.”
He said was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu.
On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain” when being interrogated.
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically” worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location.
They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,” he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.”
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar.
A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.”
He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Commander Gordon said he had no knowledge of such treatment. Some former detainees have made similar accusations, including Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who was picked up in Pakistan, turned over to the United States and delivered to Egypt, where he says he was badly tortured.
At Guantánamo, Mr. Hicks said he was also shown a picture of Mr. Habib. “In the photo, Habib’s face was black and blue,” Mr. Hicks wrote. “I first thought it was a photo of a corpse,” he said, adding that an interrogator told him that if he did not cooperate he would be sent to Egypt “to suffer the same fate.”
“This regular brutality left me in a heightened state of fear and anxiety about my own safety,” Mr. Hicks wrote in the affidavit.
After Mr. Hicks was formally charged earlier this month, Australian officials said publicly that they hoped a plea bargain allowing Mr. Hicks to come home could be negotiated. Two American officials close to the case said they expected that the deal would be for Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to the one charge, in exchange for the five years he has already been held."
cheers
happytown said:from todays new york times (would have provided the link but sometimes requires registration),
" By RAYMOND BONNER
Published: March 20, 2007
LONDON, March 19 ”” David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit.
While Mr. Hicks did not claim that he was tortured at Guantánamo, he said he was given regular, mysterious injections that “would make my head feel strange.” He also said he witnessed or heard about mistreatment of others there.
A detainee with only one leg was “set upon” by a special military team and its dogs, he said. The man was dragged out of his cell, and there was blood on his face and the cell floor. “It put me in such fear that I just knew I would ‘cooperate’ in any way with the U.S.”
A spokesman for the military commission, Cmdr. J. D. Gordon, described Mr. Hicks’s allegations as “false,” and “completely lacking in merit.”
“Hicks has make a number of allegations in the past, which have proven to be unsubstantiated and completely lacking in merit,” Commander Gordon said.
For example, he said Mr. Hicks had once alleged that he was shackled to the floor for 22 hours a day, which Commander Gordon said was untrue.
Mr. Hicks is Australian, but his mother was born in Britain; he has been seeking citizenship here because he believes that the British government has done more to secure the release of its citizens in Guantánamo than Australia has.
At an American military commission hearing scheduled for March 26, Mr. Hicks will plead not guilty to a single charge of providing material support for terrorism, his military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, has said. The initial charges against Mr. Hicks, including attempted murder and aiding the enemy, have been dropped.
Major Mori’s aggressive defense of Mr. Hicks continues to draw fire from the chief prosecutor of the military commission, Col. Morris Davis. In an e-mail message last week to the judge who oversees the military commissions, Colonel Davis said that Major Mori appeared to have violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits an officer from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other senior officials.
Colonel Davis cited numerous statements by Major Mori on his trips to Australia that he said could be considered insulting or rude. A copy of the message, from Colonel Davis to Judge Susan Crawford, was provided to The New York Times by someone who supports Major Mori.
Major Mori declined to comment on Colonel Davis’s latest criticisms. Earlier this month, after Colonel Davis first voiced disapproval of Major Mori’s conduct, Major Mori said that it might force him to withdraw from the case. Commander Gordon, the commission spokesman, declined to discuss Colonel Davis’s message, calling it “an internal staff matter.”
In Australia, Major Mori is widely credited with having changed the public attitude toward Mr. Hicks. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Hicks was often described in Australia’s tabloids as “Australia’s Taliban.” Now, across the political spectrum, there is pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to have Mr. Hicks returned to Australia soon.
Major Mori has also been praised by former detainees for his representation.
Australian intelligence officials have said that Mr. Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda. For his part, Mr. Hicks said he was seized by the Northern Alliance, which was fighting with the Americans against the Taliban, and was treated well for two weeks.
“When the U.S. interrogators showed up my treatment changed,” Mr. Hicks said in the affidavit, which was filed in December but has remained largely unnoticed.
He said he was interrogated by five Americans, who were dressed in black combat gear without any insignia.
“The U.S. interrogators would question me,” he said, “and after my responses I would be slapped in the back of the head and told I was lying.”
At one point, he said, he was forced to sit on a window ledge, and outside there were six American soldiers with their weapons pointed at him, he wrote.
One interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage.” It was at this point, he said, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators, I might be shot.”
He said was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu.
On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain” when being interrogated.
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically” worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location.
They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,” he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.”
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar.
A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.”
He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Commander Gordon said he had no knowledge of such treatment. Some former detainees have made similar accusations, including Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who was picked up in Pakistan, turned over to the United States and delivered to Egypt, where he says he was badly tortured.
At Guantánamo, Mr. Hicks said he was also shown a picture of Mr. Habib. “In the photo, Habib’s face was black and blue,” Mr. Hicks wrote. “I first thought it was a photo of a corpse,” he said, adding that an interrogator told him that if he did not cooperate he would be sent to Egypt “to suffer the same fate.”
“This regular brutality left me in a heightened state of fear and anxiety about my own safety,” Mr. Hicks wrote in the affidavit.
After Mr. Hicks was formally charged earlier this month, Australian officials said publicly that they hoped a plea bargain allowing Mr. Hicks to come home could be negotiated. Two American officials close to the case said they expected that the deal would be for Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to the one charge, in exchange for the five years he has already been held."
cheers
Yes our prisons are a lot safer.You only get raped, bashed ,shanked, the ole pillow case full of weights to the head or abused in some other way.Or more solitary confinement.
Agreed. Despite Mr Hicks being foolish enough to have got involved in the situation in the first place, he is still entitled to natural justice. Its about time that this saga is closed for the benefit of all concerned. Its also surprising how the Hicks issue crosses the political spectrum when you now have most people calling for a fair trial for him.Julia said:
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Blind Freddy can see its a sham. Did anyone hear Downer hysterically pleading Santoro's case to be "treated like a human!!" lol.
I notice the nice Commander denying that they tortured Hicks - ("has no knowledge") - I notice that they are getting a bit cleverer than they used to be - they no longer take photos as they used to at Abu Ghraib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prison
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444
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You'll see the "white plastic" object in those photos in link in previous post.
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444
Here's one of those well publicised photos (at the time) of gloating over a man beaten to death. - also that particular "commandant" who was fired. / oops "demoted" - wait for it ... for shoplifting lol. (read on)
(make you sick)
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444
Here's one of those well publicised photos (at the time) of gloating over a man beaten to death. - also that particular "commandant" who was fired. / oops "demoted" - wait for it ... for shoplifting lol. (read on)
Anyone want to comment about the mental health of these captors? - speaking of pleading insanity (as someone said about Hicks)
that's a good one - lol - shoplifting !!
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Julia
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Those photographs, especially the happy grin on the woman's face, are beyond sickening.
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1. McLeod is implying a plea bargain is probable. - and totally understandable.
2. every time I have heard Downer answering a question on this, he says "Hicks is (I begrudgingly concede) entitled to a day in court, ....." twitch twitch - then his lip starts to quiver, then with the second question, he says what he really thinks "the man is a fink etc" .
3. Ruddock puts an interesting spin on the lengthy detention " work in his favour " ??? - I'm sure he'd have preferred a speedy trial (as long as it was transparently fair). Strange to hear an Attorney General championing the advantages of the abolition of habeus corpus.
4. What will happen to Mori after this ? - be interesting to plot his career PS the real reason why Ruddock is challenging why Mori has gone public with this, is that every time Mori "tells it like it is ", the Libs lose another 5 points in the polls. Ruddock's arguments on this of late have been wierd - I mean if I wanted a lawyer, and I had the choice of Mori or Ruddock, I 'd pick Mori every time.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1881582.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1874881.htm
2. every time I have heard Downer answering a question on this, he says "Hicks is (I begrudgingly concede) entitled to a day in court, ....." twitch twitch - then his lip starts to quiver, then with the second question, he says what he really thinks "the man is a fink etc" .
3. Ruddock puts an interesting spin on the lengthy detention " work in his favour " ??? - I'm sure he'd have preferred a speedy trial (as long as it was transparently fair). Strange to hear an Attorney General championing the advantages of the abolition of habeus corpus.
4. What will happen to Mori after this ? - be interesting to plot his career
PS the real reason why Ruddock is challenging why Mori has gone public with this, is that every time Mori "tells it like it is ", the Libs lose another 5 points in the polls. Ruddock's arguments on this of late have been wierd - I mean if I wanted a lawyer, and I had the choice of Mori or Ruddock, I 'd pick Mori every time. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1881582.htm
And Ruddock pretending that he is also interested in Hicks welfare. ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1874881.htm
Kauri
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David Hicks has just pleaded guilty.... should be home soon!!!!
chops_a_must
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That's really not a good outcome though...
