Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
March 2, 2007
Pg. 3
By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Pentagon officials announced yesterday that David M. Hicks, an Australian detainee in U.S. custody for more than five years, will face two counts of providing material support for terrorism, the first time anyone has been charged under the U.S. law passed last year governing military trials for some foreign terrorism suspects.
The case against Hicks marks the first use of rules established by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, enacted when Republicans controlled Congress and after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier rules for the military trials.
Some Democrats, with their party now in control of Congress, have been outspoken about wanting to revamp the Military Commissions Act to provide suspects with more rights and to eliminate the use of evidence obtained through coercion. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have introduced legislation that would restore the rights of detainees such as Hicks to challenge their detentions via habeas corpus petitions. A federal appeals court in Washington recently ruled that such challenges are prohibited.
The filing of charges could also prompt Hicks's attorneys to initiate a legal challenge of the law. Defense attorneys for a group of foreign nationals at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including Hicks, have filed lawsuits stating that the law's provisions are unconstitutional, but they recently lost at the appellate level.
The detainees' lawyers said they plan to file a petition Monday for an expedited Supreme Court hearing. Another Guantanamo detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, filed a petition with the Supreme Court this week alleging that the Military Commissions Act is unconstitutional.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has long supported the Military Commissions Act, said yesterday that he believes that Hicks will receive a fair trial and that if he is found guilty, the U.S. judicial system will properly review the commissions process as part of an automatic appeal.
"After four years of starts and stops, I am pleased to see this trial is going forward," Graham said. "Mr. Hicks deserves his day in court."
A defense official familiar with the military commissions said yesterday that the department expects legal challenges but will go ahead with a mandated arraignment of Hicks within 30 days.
Australian officials have protested the length of Hicks's captivity without trial and have been pressing the United States to try him swiftly and send him back to Australia to serve any sentence. Prime Minister John Howard said he raised the issue with Vice President Cheney when Cheney visited Australia last week.
U.S. officials said last year that they would be willing to transfer Hicks to Australia after he faces a military commission, and the entreaties by a close ally could have spurred U.S. officials to move his case forward.
Hicks, 31, a former kangaroo skinner, is among 10 Guantanamo detainees who were designated to face military commissions in 2004, before legal challenges stopped the process. He is not accused of crimes related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States or of having attacked U.S. troops or anyone else.
"The first thing out of the chute has nothing to do with 9/11, and I think that raises a lot of questions," said Jumana Musa of Amnesty International. "Is this a practice military commission?"
Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions, referred two charges of providing support to terrorist groups against Hicks but did not find probable cause for a charge of attempted murder levied against him by military prosecutors.
According to charging documents, Hicks spent 1999 through 2001 working and training with extremist groups in the Balkans, Pakistan and Afghanistan before joining up with al-Qaeda. Military prosecutors wrote that Hicks provided information to his captors that linked him to conversations with Osama bin Laden and to several training camps in Afghanistan.
Hicks allegedly "collected intelligence on the American Embassy" in Kabul in 2001, and after the Sept. 11 attacks he went to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he received an AK-47 rifle and guarded a tank as U.S. forces began their bombing campaign, according to charging documents.
Military prosecutors allege that Hicks later traveled to Kunduz, Afghanistan, and joined al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others "on the frontline outside the city for two hours" before trying to escape to Pakistan in a taxi.
Also yesterday, officials transferred five more detainees out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, sending two to Afghanistan and three to Tajikistan. That raises the total released or transferred to about 390. Another 385 remain.
March 2, 2007
Pg. 3
By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Pentagon officials announced yesterday that David M. Hicks, an Australian detainee in U.S. custody for more than five years, will face two counts of providing material support for terrorism, the first time anyone has been charged under the U.S. law passed last year governing military trials for some foreign terrorism suspects.
The case against Hicks marks the first use of rules established by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, enacted when Republicans controlled Congress and after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier rules for the military trials.
Some Democrats, with their party now in control of Congress, have been outspoken about wanting to revamp the Military Commissions Act to provide suspects with more rights and to eliminate the use of evidence obtained through coercion. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have introduced legislation that would restore the rights of detainees such as Hicks to challenge their detentions via habeas corpus petitions. A federal appeals court in Washington recently ruled that such challenges are prohibited.
The filing of charges could also prompt Hicks's attorneys to initiate a legal challenge of the law. Defense attorneys for a group of foreign nationals at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including Hicks, have filed lawsuits stating that the law's provisions are unconstitutional, but they recently lost at the appellate level.
The detainees' lawyers said they plan to file a petition Monday for an expedited Supreme Court hearing. Another Guantanamo detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, filed a petition with the Supreme Court this week alleging that the Military Commissions Act is unconstitutional.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has long supported the Military Commissions Act, said yesterday that he believes that Hicks will receive a fair trial and that if he is found guilty, the U.S. judicial system will properly review the commissions process as part of an automatic appeal.
"After four years of starts and stops, I am pleased to see this trial is going forward," Graham said. "Mr. Hicks deserves his day in court."
A defense official familiar with the military commissions said yesterday that the department expects legal challenges but will go ahead with a mandated arraignment of Hicks within 30 days.
Australian officials have protested the length of Hicks's captivity without trial and have been pressing the United States to try him swiftly and send him back to Australia to serve any sentence. Prime Minister John Howard said he raised the issue with Vice President Cheney when Cheney visited Australia last week.
U.S. officials said last year that they would be willing to transfer Hicks to Australia after he faces a military commission, and the entreaties by a close ally could have spurred U.S. officials to move his case forward.
Hicks, 31, a former kangaroo skinner, is among 10 Guantanamo detainees who were designated to face military commissions in 2004, before legal challenges stopped the process. He is not accused of crimes related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States or of having attacked U.S. troops or anyone else.
"The first thing out of the chute has nothing to do with 9/11, and I think that raises a lot of questions," said Jumana Musa of Amnesty International. "Is this a practice military commission?"
Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions, referred two charges of providing support to terrorist groups against Hicks but did not find probable cause for a charge of attempted murder levied against him by military prosecutors.
According to charging documents, Hicks spent 1999 through 2001 working and training with extremist groups in the Balkans, Pakistan and Afghanistan before joining up with al-Qaeda. Military prosecutors wrote that Hicks provided information to his captors that linked him to conversations with Osama bin Laden and to several training camps in Afghanistan.
Hicks allegedly "collected intelligence on the American Embassy" in Kabul in 2001, and after the Sept. 11 attacks he went to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he received an AK-47 rifle and guarded a tank as U.S. forces began their bombing campaign, according to charging documents.
Military prosecutors allege that Hicks later traveled to Kunduz, Afghanistan, and joined al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others "on the frontline outside the city for two hours" before trying to escape to Pakistan in a taxi.
Also yesterday, officials transferred five more detainees out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, sending two to Afghanistan and three to Tajikistan. That raises the total released or transferred to about 390. Another 385 remain.