May 20, 2007
Terror Detainee Back in Australia
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
ADELAIDE, Australia, Sunday, May 20 (Agence France-Presse) * David Hicks, the Guantánamo Bay detainee who pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge, returned home to Australia on Sunday to complete his sentence, after more than five years in detention at the United States military base in Cuba.
Mr. Hicks, 31, was to be taken to the maximum security Yatala prison. He was sentenced in March to seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism. Under a deal with American prosecutors, most of his jail sentence was suspended and he will be able to walk free before Jan. 1, 2008.
Mr. Hicks, who was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and sent to Guantánamo early the following year, was held for years without charge and spent significant amounts of time in solitary confinement.
In March, he made a surprise plea bargain, pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism in exchange for being allowed to serve out his term on Australian soil.
Under the deal, he has agreed to withdraw all claims of mistreatment during his
time in Guantánamo Bay and is barred from speaking to the news media for a year.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
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1 comment:
Thank God HICKS is out of the gulag!
Now it's time for Australia to show Bush and the rest of the world that its kangaroos are not a part of their court & justice system -- HICKS should be summarily released from prison immediately.
Yes, HICKS was foolish and myopic in the bases for his affiliations with Al Qaeda in Afganistan; but he was far from a terrorist or a supporter thereof.
On the other hand, the US Government and Mr. Bush in particular are cupable of an absolute disregard to US Justice and Ethics promulgated over two centuries!
Let David Hicks be freed immediately!
Steve Rodick
San Diego, California
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