Playing Games With Laws and Lives

If you want to know how Bush Administration is ruining lives by playing games with laws and disfiguring the face of justice, read the following news stroy from the Associated Press published in the Guardian .
Friday March 2, 2007

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Australian man imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay by the United States is the first terror-war suspect to face prosecution under a new system of military tribunals and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

The Bush administration charged David Hicks, a 31-year old former kangaroo skinner captured in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Thursday with providing material support for terrorism.

In Australia, Hicks' lawyer and family accused the United States of tailoring the charges against him to fit his actions and said there was no way he would receive a fair trial.

Hicks was not charged with attempted murder, as had earlier been recommended by military prosecutors.

Maj. Michael Mori, Hicks' Pentagon-appointed lawyer, said Friday that dropping the attempted murder charge revealed a lack of evidence against his client, and that the material support for the terrorism charge was unfair because it did not exist under the laws of war when Hicks was alleged to have committed it.

``The United States administration - this military commission - is fabricating offenses, they're trying to apply them retroactively to David,'' Mori told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

``It's disgusting that he has spent five years in Guantanamo for made-up charges,'' Mori, who is visiting Australia, told reporters later.

Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, complained the military commission would ``not be a fair process'' because hearsay evidence and statements made under coercion would be accepted.

The case has attracted wide attention in the United States and abroad and could become the one that opponents of the new military tribunal system use to challenge the system at the Supreme Court. Opponents of the military commissions say they are illegal because they do not afford many legal rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

``It all seems to be an intermingling of politics and pressure,'' said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International. ``But none of it screams to me to be in the interest of justice.''

Proponents of the new system say they expect the federal courts to rule in favor of the military commissions.

``I trust the system to judge Mr. Hicks fairly,'' said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a co-sponsor of the commissions legislation. ``It's long overdue this case be brought forward.''

Australia, a steadfast U.S. ally in the war on terror, has been pressuring the White House to return Hicks to his native country. But that apparently wouldn't come until after a trial, at Guantanamo.

Last month, Sandra Hodgkinson, the State Department's deputy director for war crimes issues, told reporters that ``it's certainly believed that Mr. Hicks may be able to carry out his incarceration, after the appeals process is complete, in Australia.''

President Bush and Congress established the new legal system last fall. Lawmakers set up the tribunals after the Supreme Court ruled an older version established by Bush was unconstitutional because it lacked Congress' blessing and violated international agreements.

There are an estimated 385 detainees remaining at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. None of the men held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban has ever gone to trial.

Hicks was among 10 detainees who had been charged with crimes under the earlier law that the court struck down. Then, he had been charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.

Another of the 10 was Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, whose case ended up being the one the Supreme Court used to throw out the previous tribunal system.

According to Pentagon documents, Hicks went to Afghanistan in January 2001 to attend al-Qaida terrorist training camps. He also traveled to the southern city of Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold, and stayed in an al-Qaida guest house where he met ``shoe bomber'' Richard Reid and other al-Qaida associates.

The Pentagon says that for about a year starting around December 2000, Hicks provided ``support or resources to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism'' and that he ``knew or intended'' for the support to be used for terrorism.

Last month, military prosecutors recommended that Hicks be charged with attempted murder for fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan and with providing support for terrorism.

On Thursday, Susan Crawford, the head of the military commissions, formally charged Hicks only with providing material support for terrorism.

The Pentagon announcement did not explain why the attempted murder charge was dropped. But a package of talking points written for officials to answer questions on the announcement suggested Crawford didn't believe the evidence warranted it.