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David Hicks may yet have his shameful – and now unlawful – US terrorism conviction overturned, reports Barry Everingham.
John Howard did more than turn his back on David Hicks, he allegedly also arranged for him to be prosecuted by the United States for his own domestic political gain.
David Hicks might yet have his day in court, now that the Appeals Court in the United States has deemed that material support for terrorism was not an international-war crime before 2006.
The treatment this Australian citizen received at the hands of the hands of the Howard Government was nothing short of outrageous and it’s to be hoped Hicks can get compensation for the torture and humiliation he suffered while he was the plaything of U.S. Marines at George W. Bush the Lesser’s torturous Guantanamo Bay “correction facility”.
And it seems the Greens will seek to move that the Senate hold and full inquiry into the Hicks case, which his former US legal advisor Dan Mori says was “totally unfair”.
The iconic Australian business tycoon Dick Smith, who incidentally provided $60,000 for Hicks’ for legal defence, said he hoped the former prisoner would get his day in court.
Said Mr. Smith:
“I would love to see him have a day with some due process.”
Dick Smith is not on his own in this respect.
The Queen was indirectly helpful as well!
I, along with many Australians, was absolutely appalled by the inaction of John Howard and his henchmen, Phil Ruddock and Alexander Downer, in helping David Hicks.
In a moment of sheer frustration, I wrote to her Majesty, pointing out that the political trio were doing nothing to help David Hicks.
I was amazed when Her Majesty replied, though her Chief Correspondence Officer, and told me she was aware of the matter and that my letter had been sent to the British Minister for Commonwealth Affairs.
The Queen obviously bypassed Australian officials, whom I heard were furious that the letter had been written in the first place and that they had been leapfrogged.
No sooner had the letter from the Palace arrived then I had a call from the Chief of Security at the Commonwealth Affairs office in Whitehall.
He explained that Tony Blair had insisted that all British Citizens be released from Guantanamo Bay, which they subsequently were.
He further said as much as HM’s Government was concerned, there was little that could be done to help Hicks at that time as he was currently applying for British citizenship on the basis that his mother had been born in the United Kingdom.
My own contacts in Whitehall said they could not recall a time when the Queen had been so obviously “political”, particularly in a matter that concerned a Commonwealth citizen ― however it is well known her Majesty abhors any kind of injustice.
Of course locally, the detractors of David Hicks point to his plea of “guilty”, but fail to mention that the young bloke was probably drugged to the hilt, had been tortured and would have said black was white to please the kangaroo court our great allies in Washington had provided.
It was a shameful episode and justice must be now be served by overturning Hicks’ wrongful conviction.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
31 Comments
I recommend David Hicks’ book, one of the most interesting I have read in a long time. Nobody should offer an opinion on him or his treatment unless they have read it. As readers of IA know, you don’t get the truth, or even part of the truth, from the MSM.
Dear BARRY EVERINGHAM, readers may be unaware of the times I
interviewed TERRY HICKS on my radio show TALK THE TALK with
TESS LAWRENCE on VISION AUSTRALIA RADIO, or that on several occasions you were in the studio as guest interviewer.
I can attest that on many occasions, you worked tirelessly into the night on the Hicks case, as many of us did – unware if he was guilty or not – but totally aware of the grotesque distortion of so called ‘ Justice ‘ in his case, and the HOWARD GOVERNMENT’s total disregard for the rule of laws pertaining to both civil and military matters and the applicable International protocols and conventions – let alone the continuing farce that remains GITMO.
I was actually spat on by some coward who heard one of the interviews with Terry Hicks, and called various obscenities that may have made even ALAN JONES and perhaps CORY BERNARDI blush.
The other day Terry Hicks thanked those many people who had helped fight for Justice for his son and hoped we feel vindicated fighting for that Justice.
I’m sure many of us appreciate his comments and many of us remember how valiantly and courageously he fought for his son’s release, and for Justice.
I will feel the sullied name of Justice will be vindicated, only when the AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT, concedes its vile role in all of this, along with the US Administration and both make redress.
Our work is not done here.
I attended the first first protest about the whole Gitmo thing not long after Terry had his cage built. 1 democrat MP, two labor MP’s, Stephen Kenny, Nick Xenophon and almost no-one else bothered to turn up.
I was at the same time working pro bono as a researcher for the Woomera lawyers group so had a good idea of what happens to people jailed without cause.
I went to every forum and met the brilliant Dan Mori on a number of occasions and when Josh Draytel asked why Australia would agree to years of prison without charge I sent him the Al Kateb decision which shocked him to the core but he then understood.
Terry and I had any number of conversations about this and agreed that David had become the new Bakhtiyari case – the government could not demonise them to make people hate refugees so they demonised David to make them hate muslims.
But let’s not get carried away with the notion that the ALP did much – Beazley did but only after he was locked up for 5 years, Jon Stanhope and Senator Linda Kirk were the only two other ALP members who said a word.
The last rally for David saw tens of thousands all over the country holding candle light vigils and when the dirty deal to jail him here was struck with the SA ALP only Nick Xenophon and Sandra Kanck told the parliament that imprisonment here without charge or trial was unconstitutional.
I want Hicks to sue the whole pack of them.
His book and Mamdouh Habibs should be the hand book for how not to do things and then add in the book about Dr Haneef for good measure.
So much for right-wing Ted Lapkin’s insulting piece published in the SMH and still on the IPA’s website calling Hicks a ‘fraud’ and his audience at the Sydney Writer’s Festival “900 incredulous fools”.
Lapkin provided not a jot of evidence but a catalogue of Hick’s previous adventures as some sort of proof of guilt and presumably reason enough for him to spend five years incarcerated without trial and then a hasty kangaroo court to justify illegality.
Lapkin (one reason I would not read The drum will he contributed) has now gone to advise Tony Abbott.
TESS you remind us that there were many heroes who helped Hicks, including Major Mori who demonstrated more courage than most of our gutless MPs but Terry Hicks must be right there at the top.
When Mori moved to Australia the IQ rose.
Shades of the Assange case perchance?
it will be many a long year mopping up the- political ills- that the horrid howard years dumped on australia
howard would have gave queen elizabeth a wink (when quietly back dooring it to pick up his royal honour)
“i’ll see ya soon liz” – would have been his sly knowing wink-
the horrid howard years will soon be revisited when the trough feeding ma and pa howard return as governor general
in the words of a well read news man
–howard has become the unflushable turd–
Definite shades of the Assange case — Australian citizens abandoned by Canberra, and left to their fate at the hands of a foreign government.
Some people think, “Well, it is OK, to leave them to their fate, because they supported the wrong cause, or threatened somebody’s national security or . . . or whatever”.
Other people worry that if the Australian govt abandons a couple of its citizens to the whim of a foreign power, for claimed “valid security reasons”, then it will only be a small step to abandoning on whim, any Australian in distress, or being persecuted by a foreign government.
Some people might ask “If it can happen to David Hicks, or Julian Assange, could it happen to me?”
It would be funny if that had already happened – ie if Australian diplomats had left Australian citizens to be killed by a foreign government. yes, funny if it has happened, but Australia’s MSM had been in cohoots with the govt to see the story never got out — and had made sure the Australian public never heard about.
No, DFAT and our MSM would NEVER do anything like that . . . . . . .. OF COURSE NOT!!
“Some people might ask “If it can happen to David Hicks, or Julian Assange, could it happen to me?””
I think most people think it could never happen to them and believe “where there’s smoke there’s fire” ignoring cases like Dr. Haneef.
Then there is the media (which to it’s credit never let the Hicks matter drop) but still prints ‘opinion’ pieces from the IPA (why is this shadowy ‘think tank’ given so much exposure ?)such as Lapkin’s disgraceful insults about an audience and his claim that because then ASIO boss Denis Richardson claimed Hicks was suspicious that justifies his treatment. Richardson also claimed Iraq had WMD which led to thousands of innocent deaths.
We’ll never get to hear the truth because sure as hell, the government will settle before the case gets to court.
Very true OSCAR.
A long time ago DENNIS RICHARDSON was a young diplomat in Nairobi – where he welcomed three Australian students to Nairobi – who were there representing Australia.
Fast forward quite a bit, and a foreign government has sent two teams of snipers after two Australians – one of them was an Australian primary school girl. DFAT had refused to answer or return their phone calls in the two weeks leading up to the shootings. If DFAT was in on the assassination plans, there would be something wrong if ASIO didn’t know. DENNIS RICHARDSON was the head of ASIO at the time of the shootings.
And the other target — one of those students DENNIS RICHARDSON had had as guests in his flat in Nairobi way back when. And his crime? – being commissioned by the Australian Federal Police and the Defence Department to produce a report that exposed more than it was supposed to – Treason, and the planned mass murder of a whole stack of Australians.
Most Australians would be amazed at how much of the truth has been hidden from them.
“Most Australians would be amazed at how much of the truth has been hidden from them. ”
Most would be and sadly don’t seem to understand the powers handed over to ASIO & the AFP who are demanding even more.
Denis Richardson is noted from the period after 9/11 for telling Australians they will have “to give up some of their freedoms to defeat terorrists”.
By small incremental steps we gradually approach a new form of fascism.
We have reached a point in Äustralian public arenas that if someone says something bad is true then it must be.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/oct/19/torture-uk-britain-blood-government
Here is a shocker from Britain whose laws we are copying.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32795.htm
And do not eat before you read this hell story.
And the right wing ranters in this country still think Hicks was wrong to get the hell out of Gitmo under any deal he could make and still claim his stories of torture are a lie.
That’s where we are heading. But the really worrying aspect to all this, as in the Haneef case, is that the perpetrators of these wrong doings are a protected species. Case in point – De Haneef had his reputation destroyed and that piece of shit Kevin Andrews continues to ply his wares in politics. Seemingly, just like lawyers, pollies are on the protected list. THIS need attending to, or any vunerable Australian will be at the whim and behest of any idiot politican who has a need to shove their tongue down the back of Uncle Sam’s trousers.
Quite right, Tungstenator, about ‘that piece of shit Kevin Andrews’. Don’t forget his fellow piece of shit Philip Ruddock who is still insisting that David Hicks was guilty. And one of them a barrister and the other solicitor and former AG.
We currently have another AG who is prepared to breach the constitutions of three nations to flog off innocent refugees to appease the bogans in Western Sydney.
Hicks was tried and convicted in the Media. Just like Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson. The common thread is the Liberal party of Australia and their mates in the MSM.
Truth be told they are full of dirty tricks. I am not going to use profanity when discussing the Liberal party of Australia or their mates the National party of Australia. All you have to do is look at their tactics. The Dismissal is a classic liberal party plot. One that succeeded. The Hicks one garnered lots of political clout as well. It was a political success. More recently there have been the disgusting attempts to smear Michael Kirby by Bill Heffrernan and the Malcolm Turnbull use of the Liberal party weasel Godwin Greech. The latest two are the Slipper and Thomson affairs. All of which have a common thread of Liberal party involvement. At a really high and deep level.
I think the David Hicks debacle can be summed up by the following.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That phrase covers the Conservative parties in Australia.
I think IA has outed a lot of lies told by collective and Individual conservative Politicians. So its a bit rich of them to call Labor politicians liars.
No one on the conservative side of Politics has the Values and Morality that are required to serve the people of Australia. Especially led by the leadership they have now.
The irony of all of this is that many of them have Law degrees. They should all go and hand them back. They are unworthy to be called Humans.
Hope Hicks gets a huge pay out for wrongful everything.
Hicks has a family and personal “father” crisis. Goes to war helping those who mutilate women, children and peaceful community and prosperity and gets caught up in a fight with American and coalition forces and intelligence. The globe is on terrorist alert and unknowing of full details or extents of networks and trying to put all together in a cacophony of politics and usual panic merchants and the sea of drowning shriekers.
Amongst the incarcerations under full military alert and footing that also had to be extended and incuded to American civil system access lives example, being made one. The grey area of politics and the hardest to confront. Under all circumstances there has been no legal incursion into such matters or sanity from the Military machine and Politics than into these matters. The world would never had heard of anyone of them or the circumstances decades ago.
Could a one off, first time situation be handled or confronted any differently as what as played out? Without all the opportuning on the matter, and by many pushing their own barrows, great advancements have been made in handling and addressing matters.Perhaps also, the lethargic public service speed will also have better gears and faster speeds in the next addressing.
What underlays the matter is the opportuning of sections of politics and corporate in the haze of war adjusting and manipulating the world and commerce, government and political situation and structures to their favour.
How the matter unwound from full military grip ,alert, through politics and civil to getting David home shouldn’t pass as not being appreciated in systems mechanics or considered a small feat. Especially when a bullet in the head is such common practice in the field.
The self brought on ills he went through instigated by intelligence curiosity and care of duty to the situation whole. Whether such matters can be streamlined from the event for future now that paths have been found and lessons learnt is probable. New ground was crossed and found for many things.
David is lucky to be alive to have suffered abuse and get home.
Being here may not have been much fun for him either if the innocent sons of everyday American families had died.
The height of his father stands out to me. I wish David well.
The other thing that stands out is the powers taken by other forces in opportunism on their people for power, political and monetary and peerage and class advantage for their politics and Nation shaping to their advantage and doctrines in our system.
It’s a case of spit out the bone you have stolen. I’m not too pleased that an American , Mori, has to be here to give any credence to the US system as other hides in there in the happening and played on. Credit to where credit is due and also to the due warnings.
Number one lesson for David, don’t play with crocodiles unless you know what your doing. And emotions can get high in matters.I wish him well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2kFzGyKgpA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2kFzGyKgpA
Moderated on IA. My country and people have no bounds and endless excuses and I am the threat?
Dear Jim, to help eliminate spam, all comments that have two or more links in them are automatically referred for moderation.
Jim, with all of that Hicks did nothing wrong.
Dear OSCAR,
Re your comment that:
‘ Denis Richardson is noted from the period after 9/11 for telling Australians they will have “to give up some of their freedoms to defeat terorrists”. ‘
I was in a US Consulate a couple of years after Sept 11 — security was, no surprise, tight — metal detectors and security guards everywhere, you had to leave all bags at the building’s entrance before you even entered the lift to go up to the Consulate, and then start the whole security thing again when you came out of the lift – more guards, more checks, you were allowed in, one at a time etc.
Five hundred yards up the road was the Aussie Consulate. There, things were a little different — not a guard in sight, not even a human oresence in the public area — the staff area was all behind floor to ceiling counters, and NONE of them were even in the room to see who came and went — you could have walked in, left a missile or a suitcase-bomb, and had plenty of time for a relaxed stroll back to the lifts.
The only part of the floor that had any security – and here the security was tight! – was THE DUNNY!! You would have needed security cards, passport, visas and maybe a pair of bolt-cutters to get in there.
The casual observer (like me) might conclude that they knew there was no terrorist threat, never had been, never would be, and that there was no real need for anyone to be giving up their freedoms, contrary to what our bureaucrats said (other than, obviously, to protect the dunny from intruders).
I was tempted to calculate how much Australia has spent and contribute to the war on terror, and then divide that by the number of secure dunnies at Australian diplomatic missions, to do a COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS — but I decided to refrain, since DFAT probably sees the location and number of its diplomatic dunnies as a matter of national security which must remain classified.
Meanwhile our Aust govt continues to do its best to sign up for a brief “one hour” reign with the evil beasties trying to conquer the world.
and the really worrying thing is that were the Republicans to take the Presidential Office again in Washington, our right wing conservatives will be lining up to do it all over again in Iran to the personal detriment of our armed forces personnel….and anyone else who dares get in the way, guilty or innocent.
And don’t forget that Ted Lapkin of the creepy IPA who outrageously slandered that Hick’s Writer’s Festival audience (how the hell would he know why members of the audience were there?) as “incredulous fools” (although the moniker may well be applied t him in the fullness of time) is now and adviser to Tony Abbott.
This is the type of person who Abbott surrounds himself with. Weep for our future.
Mercenary action has made up a lot of US male pastime itself through history Marilyn but not in the context or interest of David’s association. 9/11 gave a big excuse to act and examine. As matters turned out , David may well have been innocent of heavy association. But that was a “what if” and just as easy to say what if David had been found to be associated with a ring of diehards and politics here as well could have been the case? Being made example is part of war as is heads on poles and so is the reality fear and political and public retribution on the military chain if they let him go in bad mistake. This is accepted and in system.
The US “right” was high on itself pre 9/11, health system abuse, eating their own, smug, superior and can’t happen to us pandemonium. They went into overdrive and also looked out for a lot of other countries in burden. The vast mechanics and implementation of which have never been faced or put into action before.
Any others maybe considering doing the Foreign legion thing over a girlfriend or wife may think hard on reading David’s troubles. It’s not hard to find millions dislocated from society today and with good reasons though.
My apologies DD,you may understand from my previous content here.
Cracker I’m not entirely convinced that Labor has clean hands in these matters.
For some inexplicable reason I believed Robert McClelland would be a breath of fresh air when appointed AG. Instead he was the opposite and allowed all these ghastly thugs including those in the AFP who broke the law in respect of Dr Haneef to slide away, retire on full pensions or in the case of the one who drove the illegality against Haneef, be promoted.
I rejoiced when he was demoted but since then he has done his best to undermine the party who supported and put him there as petty persons do when they believe their political career was done all by themselves.
The jury is still out on Nicola Roxon.
Though Marilyn, I’m not happy with corporate and political opportunism that happened with our fusion to the US in the matter. I have no doubt it has played on, extended and promoted and much not wanting to be let go or unfused. Including US life, attitude and market psychologies which are heavy here for sectors advantage over the people.
David’s matter will have to sort itself in legal heights. I’m not concerned with it or will be losing sleep but certainly hope the process to be more kinder and quick in repatriating innocent fools.
Dear OSCAR JONES, thanks, and just to say that I so admire TERRY HICKS and how daily he must have had to withstand the palpable hostility from the HOWARD GOVERNMENT and dominant anti-Hicks factions.
I found his advocacy work on behalf of his son, so very moving.
I think he should have been made Father of the Year.
Jim, there are no legal issues surrounding David Hicks. His deal is invalid because it was based on an invalid law.