Hicks jailed for nine months

An Australian who pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism was sentenced to nine months in prison after becoming the first detainee convicted by military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

A panel of military officers recommended a sentence of seven years after two hours of deliberations, but a plea agreement that had been kept secret from the panel members capped Hicks’ sentence at nine months.

Hicks, a 31-year-old kangaroo skinner, appeared relieved as the judge, Marine Corps Col. Ralph Kohlmann, disclosed the agreement. Asked if the outcome was what he was told to expect, Hicks said, “Yes, it was.”

The United States had agreed to let Hicks serve his sentence in Australia, and he is to leave the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba within 60 days under the plea agreement.

But today his father, Terry Hicks, said the leniency of his son’s prison sentence imposed by a US military commission at Guantanamo Bay proved the weakness of the prosecution’s case.

Prime Minister John Howard said the verdict vindicated what his government had said – that Hicks, an Australian, was a dangerous terrorist.

“The bottom line will always be that he pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation,” Howard said.

“He’s acknowledged the prosecution could have proved that beyond a reasonable doubt,” he added.

Howard also rejected Mr Hicks’ argument that the plea bargain to end his son’s trial proved the prosecution case was weak.

Mr Hicks had questioned why the US prosecution agreed to a nine-month prison term in return for a guilty plea rather than pursue a trial and the 20-year prison sentence they claimed his son deserved.

“It’s quite amazing that for five years the government and the Americans have been touting David as the worst of the worst and he gets nine months,” Mr Hicks said.

“Something’s not right. It shows how weak the evidence is in this charade,” he added.

His son is to serve the sentence in a prison in his hometown of Adelaide after admitting he aided al Qaida in a plea deal that required him to state he had never been illegally treated during his five years in US custody.

But Mr Hicks vowed to pursue his allegations that his son was sexually abused and tortured both physically and mentally by Americans after being captured during an attempt to flee Afghanistan in December 2001.

“I’m not going to let this lie just because David’s been forced into a situation where he has to sign a waiver,” the father said.

The allegations are contained in an affidavit before a London court in which David Hicks had been seeking British citizenship as a means of securing British government support for his release from Guantanamo Bay. Mr Hicks said he did not know if that court action would now continue.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said two US military investigations had already failed to find evidence substantiating Hicks’ abuse allegations.

Mr Hicks, a vocal critic of the US military commission system, described his son as “a Taliban foot soldier” but not a terrorist.

Howard, a staunch ally in the US-led fight against terrorism, has long rejected pressure for Hicks to be repatriated, despite condemnations of the military commission system by legal and human rights groups.

Mr Hicks said he had no doubt that a 12-month ban on his son, a Muslim convert, talking to the media – a condition of his plea bargain – was designed to spare Howard embarrassment as he seeks his fifth three-year term as prime minister at elections due late this year.

Howard denied any government interference in the sentence.