PM 'should press for Hicks release'

[struggle4progress]

AUSTRALIAN people should pressure the Government to push the United State to release terror suspect David Hicks, a British lawyer said today.

Louise Christian, who represented three British terror suspects detained and later released from the a US facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, said the proposed US military commissions were blatantly unfair. <snip>

Ms Christian said Guantanamo Bay was totally illegal under international law and had been described by one British appeal court judges as a legal black hole. <snip>

"None of <the British citizens detained by the US and now returned to the UK> have been a threat. None of them have been a problem and we have learned a considerable amount about the regime in Guantanamo and particularly the torture people were subjected to there," she said. <snip>

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16137441%5E1702,00.html

[oioioi]

1. Third terror trial prosecutor quits

A THIRD US military prosecutor has quit the military commission process under which Australian David Hicks will be tried over concerns it is unfair.

US Air Force Captain Carrie Wolf had chosen to take a reassignment along with other prosecutors, ABC radio reported today.

It follows the release of emails by two former prosecutors who described the process set up to try Guantanamo detainees as flawed and rigged to ensure guilty verdicts against mainly low level suspects.

<snip>

It was understood Captain Wolf had shared her colleagues' concerns about the military commission process.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16137618%255E1702,00.html

[oioioi]

2. Downer (Australian Foreign Minister) backs Hicks Commissions

CLAIMS that the US military commissions system is flawed and its juries will be rigged have been thoroughly investigated, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

"There was a very thorough investigation into these allegations because amongst the material in these emails are very serious allegations," Mr Downer said on ABC radio.

"The Americans have told us that those investigations cleared the military commission process."

Leaked emails from two former US military prosecutors claiming the system is flawed and the outcomes will be rigged, have opened up new controversy over the military commissions.

Hicks has been at the US military facility in Cuba for nearly four years awaiting trial.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16137553%255E1702,00.html

[cal04]

3. Hicks can be tried in Aust, lawyers say

Two leading academic lawyers say Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks could be charged and tried in Australia.The Federal Government has repeatedly said there are no Australian laws under which Hicks could be tried.

However, legal advice written by academics from the University of New South Wales says Hicks could be charged with breaching the Geneva Convention, the Crimes Act and the Foreign Incursions and Recruitment Act.

The report was prepared for businessman Dick Smith.
Mr Smith says he has written to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to ask him to consider the legal opinion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1429415.htm

[oioioi]

4. Before a kangaroo court

I suppose it is possible Captain Paul Willee, head of Australia's military bar, is a softie with a poor grasp of the law who isn't sufficiently galvanised by the terrorist threat David Hicks might present.

There could be a remote chance that Ninian Stephen, former governor-general, former High Court judge, and present patron of Melbourne University's Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law, is off beam when he says he tends to agree with Willee's views on the injustice of the US military commission Hicks will face, finding the whole thing "disturbing".

Conceivably, former US military prosecutors were talking through their hats in condemning (in just-revealed emails sent last year) the commissions and describing the proposed cases against Hicks and three other Guantanamo Bay detainees as "half-assed".

And maybe the Law Council of Australia has some undiscerned ulterior motive in commissioning a report from Lex Lasry, QC, who declared Hicks' case "is much less about David Hicks than . . . about a grossly unfair process", adding that "Australia's own moral authority is at risk if it continues to condone this process".

All these people could be wrong-headed. But do we really think they are?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/michelle-grattan/before-a-kangaroo-court/2005/08/02/1122748632923.html

[Judi Lynn]

5. Excellent 'toons, oioioi.

It's a shame they're so appropriate, isn't it?

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