Hicks will get fair trial, US insists

[struggle4progress]

By Cynthia Banham Foreign Affairs Reporter
October 21, 2005

The Pentagon's legal adviser on its military commissions for Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Brigadier-General Thomas Hemingway, says the case against the Australian David Hicks is not the most serious he has seen and that one could find "much more egregious allegations".

Speaking to journalists in Australia in a video-linked news conference yesterday, General Hemingway defended the military commissions, which the US has significantly modified in the face of widespread criticisms that they are unjust and breach rule-of-law principles.

The British have refused to let their citizens be tried by the US military commissions, and Hicks, whose mother is British, has filed an application for British citizenship - which could be decided next month - in the hope he can be freed from Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks, who has been in US custody in Cuba since January 2002, and who has been charged with a number of terrorism offences including attempted murder, conspiracy and aiding the enemy, next faces court on November 18. <snip>

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hicks-will-get-fair-trial-us-insists/2005/10/20/1129775902794.html


Hicks' time in custody ignored by Pentagon

By Brendan Nicholson
Foreign Affairs Correspondent
October 21, 2005

<snip> Yesterday the Pentagon's senior legal adviser on the commissions, Brigadier-General Thomas Hemingway, said that if Hicks were convicted the four years he has already spent in detention would not be taken into account when sentenced. <snip>

Melbourne barrister Lex Lasry, who has examined the Hicks case closely for the Law Council of Australia, said that would be outrageous.

Mr Lasry warned a year ago that could happen and he said last night that the US system was clearly unjust. "It means that if he were sentenced to 20 years, he would serve 24." <snip>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/hicks-time-in-custody-ignored-by-pentagon/2005/10/20/1129775901895.html