Jailed Australian pleads not guilty
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Australian David Hicks pleaded not guilty Wednesday to conspiring with al Qaeda to commit terrorism as his lawyers attacked the legal foundation of the U.S. military tribunal created to prosecute war crimes.
Wearing a suit for the first time in his life, according to his lawyer, Hicks appeared tense. When asked to enter a plea by the tribunal’s presiding officer, he said, “Sir, to all charges, not guilty.”
Hicks, 29, faces a trial Jan. 10 before a five-member military tribunal that will be both his judge and jury in a system of justice that President Bush ordered the Pentagon to create in November 2001.
His civilian and military-appointed lawyers sought the removal of four of the five tribunal members whose backgrounds were questioned because of their relationships to Pentagon officials who appointed them or their roles in the war in Afghanistan.
The attorneys also sought to disqualify the entire panel, saying the four non-lawyers on the tribunal probably will have difficulty keeping straight legal arguments and evidence in the four cases they have been assigned to hear.
The tribunal is holding hearings this week in cases against Hicks, two Yemenis and a Sudanese who were captured in Afghanistan and are accused of war crimes.
Before and after Wednesday’s session, Hicks had tearful meetings with his father, Terry, and stepmother, Beverly, who flew here from Australia to see him for the first time in five years.
Terry Hicks said that his son “looks very good” but that he worries about his mental state.
“He said he copes in stages,” Terry Hicks said. “When he has people here, he’s OK. When they leave, things start going through his mind.”
The younger Hicks told his father that he was abused by U.S. troops who interrogated him after he was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001. Terry Hicks said his son has not been abused at Guantanamo Bay but instead has been subjected to mental “stress and duress.” The father would not say what his son had told him about his reason for being in Afghanistan.
According to the charges, Hicks, a convert to Islam, attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, where he met the terrorist network’s leader, Osama bin Laden. Hicks allegedly complained to bin Laden about the lack of al Qaeda training manuals in English. Bin Laden allegedly urged Hicks to translate the materials from Arabic into English.
Hicks is one of the nearly 600 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who have been held here for nearly three years. He faces three charges: conspiracy; attempted murder of U.S., Australian and other coalition soldiers in Afghanistan; and aiding the enemy.
His confinement has generated controversy in Australia, where government officials have not asked for his return for trial because Australia lacks comparable laws under which he could be prosecuted.