There has been a lot of protesting going on in Oz about this guy. Of course our prime minister is buddy buddy with Mr Bush, so did what was convenient for his ongoing relationship with the president. All signs are pointing to him losing office at our elections at the end of the year and David Hicks is one of the (IMO) major factors.
Even if he is guilty, you should not have to make up laws after the fact on which to try him and a lot of Aussies are not happy that he has spent 5 years waiting for the US govt to decide how to get him to trial.
From my perspective, Australia should have done what the UK did - ask for our citizen to be returned as soon as he was captured...
RE the defence lawyers, that seems like a huge bag of shit
Quote:
The presiding judge, Colonel Ralph Kohlmann said that Major Michael Mori’s assistant could not, at least for the moment, represent him because she was not a serving member of the military.
The judge also decided that Hicks’s civilian lawyer, New York criminal attorney Joshua Dratel could not represent Hicks because he had not signed a form demanded by the court saying he would conform to the regulations governing proceedings.
Mr Dratel protested strongly, saying he could not sign the form because the regulations governing the conduct of attorneys had not yet been formulated by the Secretary of Defence. He was not going to sign a blank cheque for his ethical obligations.
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The quote is from SMH (
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hic...e#contentSwap1)