Suspect faces military tribunal
WASHINGTON – In the first major terrorism case designated for a military tribunal, the Pentagon on Thursday announced that it had charged an Australian adventure-seeker who the United States contends became a convert to Islam and a soldier for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
The decision to try David Hicks, 28, a prisoner at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was reached after lengthy negotiations between the United States and longtime ally Australia that produced a U.S. agreement not to seek the death penalty.
Hicks was charged with three criminal counts – conspiring to commit acts of terrorism, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. But unlike two other detainees at Guantanamo Bay who face military tribunals, the government portrayed Hicks as a committed and well-traveled terrorist who trained alongside bin Laden and shouldered an AK-47 rifle and a grenade pack for the al Qaeda terror network and the Taliban army in their war against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Hicks eventually was captured in November 2001 on the Afghan battlefield along with John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban recruit from Northern California, six weeks after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Maj. John Smith, a Pentagon spokesman for the still-unfolding military tribunal process, said Hicks “will be provided a fair and full trial” at the secluded naval base in Cuba, and that two of his family members and representatives of the Australian government will be permitted to attend along with the media.
At the Australian Embassy in Washington, spokesman Matt Francis said, “The Australian government is satisfied the military commission process will be fair and transparent while protecting the security interests of the U.S.”
But the U.S. military lawyer who will defend Hicks against a team of military prosecutors and before a military judge and a jury of American soldiers said the process was stacked against his client.
“David Hicks has not violated any law of war and shouldn’t have been charged,” said Maj. Michael Mori, the lawyer. “It’s unfortunate these charges will never be tested before a fair and established justice system.”
Mori added that although Hicks is accused of maintaining surveillance on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a possible terrorist target in August 2001, the Embassy was closed at that time. “They didn’t even get that right,” Mori said.
According to the charges disclosed Thursday, Hicks, a native of Adelaide, Australia, traveled in 1999 to Albania and joined the Kosovo Liberation Army, a paramilitary organization fighting on behalf of Albanian Muslims. He later returned home and converted from Christianity to Islam and in early 2000 joined a terrorist group known as the Lashkar e Tayyiba, or LET, the “Army of the Righteous, in Pakistan,” the charges say.
By early 2001 he was in Afghanistan at an al Qaeda training camp, with a letter of introduction from LET .
He next participated in an eight-week course at al Qaeda’s Al Farouq camp where he was “trained in weapons familiarization and firing, land mines, tactics, topography, field movements, and basic explosives,” the charges say.
By April he was taking guerrilla warfare and mountain tactics training with al Qaeda, a seven-week course.
“During one visit,” the charge sheets said, “Hicks questioned bin Laden regarding the lack of English al Qaeda training material. Accepting bin Laden’s advice, Hicks began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English.”
Hicks allegedly continued to study and train with other terrorists, learning assassination methods, kidnapping techniques and the use of assault and sniper rifles.
As U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan, Hicks was given a choice of three mobilization sites and chose to fight at the Kandahar Airport. There, according to the Pentagon, he helped guard a Taliban tank while the airport was under bombardment by U.S. forces. He later joined Lindh, and by the end of November was captured.