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Detainee in Guantánamo Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charge
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: March 27, 2007
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, March 26 — In the first conviction of a Guantánamo detainee in a military commission, an Australian who was trained by Al Qaeda pleaded guilty here Monday to providing material support to a terrorist organization.
The decision to accept a plea deal by the detainee, David Hicks, was the first under a new military commission law passed by Congress in the fall after the Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration’s first system for trying inmates at the American camp in Guantánamo. The guilty plea is sure to be seen by supporters of the administration as an affirmation of its efforts to detain and try terrorism suspects here.
The plea by Mr. Hicks came after 8 p.m. following an extraordinary day in a pristine red, white and blue courtroom here. It followed an unusual campaign to rally support in Australia by Mr. Hicks’s military defense lawyer, Major Michael D. Mori, of the United States Marine Corps.
Earlier in the day the military judge had surprised the courtroom with unexpected rulings that two of Mr. Hicks’s three lawyers would not be permitted to participate in the proceedings, leaving only Major Mori at the defense table.
After several acrimonious sessions in which Major Mori claimed that the judge, Colonel Ralph H. Kohlmann of the Marines, was biased, the judge insisted that he was impartial and the hearings came to a close. Though Mr. Hicks was arraigned, he had not entered a plea.
But in the evening Judge Kohlmann called the court back into session, saying that he had been approached by lawyers who said Mr. Hicks was now prepared to enter a plea.
Mr. Hicks, a stocky 31-year-old in a tan prison uniform, was accompanied by guards to a defense table, and Major Mori said he was now prepared to plead guilty to one of two specifications in the charges against him.
That charge described Mr. Hicks’s stay in a Qaeda training camp where, it said, he learned kidnapping techniques and was trained in how to fight in an urban environment. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Hicks had never shot at Americans during a period in Afghanistan in 2001 but that he had taken part in other activities, including collecting intelligence on the American embassy there.
After the plea, the judge adjourned the case for further proceedings this week, evidently so that the lawyers could debate what specific acts Mr. Hicks may acknowledge and, perhaps settle the sentencing questions.
Mr. Hicks has been detained her for more than five years. Lawyers have suggested that he might serve out the remainder of any sentence in Australia.
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Let me summarize. This guy was held for 5 years in Gitmo, after this new legislations passed he goes to a military trial. His two indepedent lawyers aren't allowed in the proceddings and he is stuck with his appointed USMC lawyer.
This is the same legislation that allows the executive branch to declare 'anyone' an enemy combatant at which point you lose your citizenship and rights. Then they can hold you indefinetly and use information gained from you through torture during military trials. Who wouldn't take the plea after going through 5 years of this nonsense?
Can we really trust kangaroo courts? Maybe this guy really did train with al qaida, maybe KSM really did do all the stuff he admitted to. The point is we'll really never know considering we have a government that is willing to torture.
If you wanted a unitary executive branch, that's certaintely what you're getting. This is the new America where you can be disappeared. Few people may care if they did it to this Austrialian, or the people with brown skin, but if it doesn't stop soon it will be, enviornmentalists, anti-abortionists, communists, gays, christians, you name it depending who's in power.
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Hicks claimed earlier this month through his lawyers that while in US custody he was subjected to torture, including an incident in which he was sodomized.
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Just found this article on it. He claims to of been tortured, and the judge dismissing his 2 lawyers from the courtroom doesn't look suspicious or anything.