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Down Under
Australian Held at Gitmo May Return Home
2007-02-19
By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press Imaginary Friend Writer
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Australia's foreign minister says that the U.S. defense secretary has assured him that an Australian held at Guantanamo Bay would be able to serve his sentence in Australia if he is charged and convicted, and he could return before the end of the year. David Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner who converted to Islam and is accused of fighting for the Taliban, has been held at Guantanamo for five years without being charged, and his attorneys and family say he may have developed mental illness during his extended incarceration.

He was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance during the U.S.-led invasion in December 2001.
Just a confused, pious young kangaroo skinner wandering the hills and valleys of Afghanistan looking for enlightenment. With mullahs. And a rifle.
A U.S. prosecutor said last week that Hicks is likely to be formally charged with terrorism offenses within two weeks and a military commission would be established to try him within four months. "What we are trying to do is ensure that the trial takes place as quickly as possible, so assuming that the trial goes ahead on schedule, then whether he's _ whether David Hicks is convicted or he's acquitted, and we obviously make no judgment about that _ but he should be able to come home to Australia before the end of the year," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australia's Nine Network television Sunday.

David Hicks' father, however, said he was unconvinced by the assurances from Downer. "I think they just want to sound like they're looking out for David's interests to get them past the next election," Terry Hicks said.

Prime Minister John Howard told Nine Network on Monday that he would ask Vice President Dick Cheney about the Hicks case when Cheney visits Australia this week. "I will be pressing the vice president as strongly as the circumstances allow for the trial to take place without any further delay," Howard said. "It's taken too long."
We agree. Try him, convict him, jug him for thirty years, and promise the Aussies they can have him back the day he completes his sentence.
The Australian government announced last May that it had signed an agreement with the United States that would allow Hicks to apply for a transfer to an Australian prison if he were convicted at the U.S. naval base on Cuba of terrorism offenses. Such a transfer would need the approval of both the Australian and United States governments and Hicks would have to serve the full duration of the sentence handed down by a U.S. military commission.

Terry Hicks said he doubted whether either of the two governments would risk sending his 31-year-old son back to Australia where the top legal body, the Law Council of Australia, has condemned the military commission system as unfair and could potentially take up legal challenges to the case.

Hicks is looming as an electoral liability for Howard's center-right government, which hopes to win its fifth three-year term at elections due late this year. Members of his government complain that voters are angry about the time Hicks has spent at Guantanamo without being convicted of any crime.
Posted by:anonymous5089

#3  So try him as an unlawful combattant, find him guilty (I don't think there's much doubt), and execute him. Solves the entire problem. Bury him in Cuba, just for the he$$ of it. There are several small islands that are part of Guantanamo. Bury him on one of them, and burn the records. Let his idiot father wail and gnash his teeth all he wants. Sounds like "daddy" may be as big a risk as "sonny-boy".
Posted by: Old Patriot   2007-02-19 14:17  

#2  a former kangaroo skinner who converted to Islam

Can you say 'made for tv movie'?
Posted by: SteveS   2007-02-19 08:49  

#1  an electoral liability? I doubt it. AP terrorist-loving spin
Posted by: Frank G   2007-02-19 06:48  

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