|
Hicks could be free in 9 months
31/03/2007 14:31 - (SA)
Sydney - The father of convicted terrorist David Hicks said on Saturday that he was relieved his son would serve out his sentence in his homeland.
Hicks was due to be sent back to Australia to serve nine months in jail and could be a free man by New Year's Day.
"The bottom line of all this is that at least he's back home. He's out of that hell hole," Terry Hicks told Australian media.
Hicks, 31, who has spent five years at Guantanamo Bay, was sentenced by a United States military commission on Friday to seven years' jail after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism.
He made the plea after reaching an agreement with US military prosecutors.
The commission suspended six years and three months of the sentence, meaning Hicks would serve just nine months in an Australian prison.
Hicks is the first war crimes suspect to be convicted among the hundreds of foreign captives held at the US's Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba.
'Government should have backed him'
His father, who spearheaded a campaign to have his son returned to Australia, said the sentence was better than it could have been, but that his son's case was never properly tested in court.
"It's a real shame David had to go through this way to get released when he should have had the Australian government standing up for Australia's citizens' rights," he told Australian Associated Press.
Terry Hicks said his son had been "through hell" and should never have been made to endure the conditions at Guantanamo Bay.
Australia, a close US ally, refused to ask for Hicks to be returned home because he could not be charged with any offence under its laws.
But conservative Prime Minister John Howard, facing a tough election later this year and under growing public pressure to bring Hicks back, complained to Washington about the long delay in putting the Australian on trial.
Sentence 'helps Howard'
Howard said on Saturday that he believed Hicks had pleaded guilty because the US military had a strong case against him.
"He's not a hero in my eyes and he ought not to be a hero in the eyes of any people in the Australian community," Howard told reporters in Sydney.
"The bottom line will always be that he pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organisation."
Hicks, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, acknowledged that he had trained with al-Qaeda, fought against US allies in Afghanistan in 2001 for two hours, and then sold his gun to flee to Pakistan.
Hicks' defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said his client had gained certainty about a return to Australia from his plea.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, a fierce critic of Hicks' detention, said the sentence was simply aimed at helping Howard weather political unrest.
Hicks' plea agreement bars him from speaking to the media for one year and requires him to give the Australian government any money received for the rights to his story.
- Reuters
|
News
