The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to stand trial before the controversial US military commissions is expected to be back home in Australia within weeks, and free within months, Tamam Ahmed Jama reports After an ordeal lasting more than five years in United States detention, David Hicks, often dubbed "the Australian Taliban", is expected to be flown to his native city of Adelaide in the coming weeks. The decision to repatriate Hicks follows a plea bargain hammered out at Guantanamo Bay in which Hicks pleaded guilty last week to a charge of providing material support for terrorism. He was sentenced to seven years, of which Hicks will serve only nine months in a jail in his native Australia. "President Bush insisted that the military commissions were the way to prosecute 'the worst of the worst', but the first person to be convicted gets a mere nine months, which would be considered a slap on the wrist in the criminal justice system," Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director of the US programme at Human Rights Watch, told the Weekly. "Hicks' sentence underscores the myth-making of the Bush administration about the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. While there may be some dangerous individuals among them, Mr Hicks' plea agreement is a confirmation of what many have been saying for a long time -- that many of the detainees are not as dangerous as the administration alleges, but were instead victims of circumstances." Hicks' father, Terry, has said that his son had been pressured to plead guilty. "It's a way to get home," he told reporters following his son's guilty plea. "That's what he has told us." He was allowed to meet his son briefly the day of the hearing at Guantanamo Bay and said they "hugged" and "cried". Hicks added that his son, who has apparently changed a great deal in more than five years of incarceration at the notorious naval base in Cuba, looked "bloody terrible". The Hicks case has become a cause célèbre in Australia, where he is often portrayed as an innocent, fun- loving lad who was caught up in events he did not understand. Over the past five years, anger at his continued detention, without trial, has galvanised public opinion in the country. The Australian government has increasingly been criticised for failing to follow the British example and pushing for Hicks' repatriation. The last four of nine UK nationals previously held at Guantanamo Bay were repatriated to Britain in 2005, and all were subsequently released without charge. The Australian government, spurred by growing public pressure at home, only recently started to express dissatisfaction with the length of time it took to bring Hicks to trial. "Belatedly, [Prime Minister John] Howard realised that the Hicks case was a serious threat to his re-election," read a recent editorial in the national daily The Australian. Hicks was among the first detainees to arrive at Guantanamo Bay in January 2002. He was captured by Northern Alliance forces in December 2001 and handed over to the Americans. The 31-year-old father of two, who had embraced Islam before travelling to Afghanistan, was accused of attending Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and fighting for the Taliban against the US-led coalition forces. It was also alleged that he had met top Al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden. Hicks was initially charged in 2004 with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the "enemy". He pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial was originally scheduled to take place in 2005 but had to be put on hold following a challenge to the legality of the military commissions. The US Supreme Court ruled in June 2006 that the commissions were unlawful, a violation of both American and international law. After a long battle and with minor amendments, President George W Bush secured last autumn a Congressional endorsement of the highly controversial military tribunals, first introduced in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Their procedures, including the admission, under certain circumstances, of hearsay and classified evidence, as well as evidence obtained through torture or coercion, are widely seen as not meeting international standards of fair trial. The original charges against Hicks were dropped and he was charged again in February, this time with providing material support for terrorism, the charge to which he pleaded guilty. Some lawyers have suggested that the fact that the initial charges were dropped is an indication that the US authorities had a weak case to start with. Under the terms of the plea bargain, Hicks agreed to withdraw any claim that he was ill-treated while in custody and cannot sue any US official. But he had in the past complained about ill-treatment at Guantanamo Bay. In an August 2004 letter to his family, Hicks said that he was on the brink of madness as a result of prolonged periods of solitary confinement. Other ill- treatment he said he was being subjected to included being beaten while handcuffed and blindfolded, having his head slammed into concrete, being chained to the floor, being forced to run while shackled and routine sleep deprivation. "I feel as though I am teetering on the edge of losing my sanity," Hicks said in the letter. "I've reached a point where I'm confused and lost, overwhelmed... I suffer mood swings every half hour, going from one extreme to another. No doubt this situation has negative psychological effects which will also permanently scar me." A gag order prevents Hicks from speaking to the media about the details of the plea agreement, the circumstances surrounding his capture, interrogation and detention. The gag also silences his family members and any third party for 12 months. "The government's primary interest is the prevention of disclosure of abuse," Daskal said. Meanwhile, in a report published late March, Amnesty International condemns the continued indefinite detention of hundreds of other Guantanamo Bay detainees who have not yet been charged, and expresses deep concern about the lack of fairness of the trials before the military commissions. The human rights group said that the trials should be seen in the context in which the proceedings will be taking place. "This context is one of practices pursued in the absence of independent judicial oversight that have systematically violated international law," the report states. "At any such trials, the defendants will be individuals who have been subjected to years of indefinite detention, whose right to the presumption of innocence has been systematically undermined by a pattern of official commentary on their presumed guilt. Among the defendants will be victims of enforced disappearance, secret detention, secret transfer [rendition], torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
