"The charade that took place at Guantanamo Bay would have done Stalin's show trials proud"

[Andre II]

THE secret agreement that resulted in David Hicks facing only nine more months in prison may do fatal damage to an already discredited system of dealing with terrorism suspects, legal experts say.

The combination of a sentencing deal arranged behind closed doors and the conditions imposed on Hicks, including a year-long gag order and a declaration that he was never tortured, has shown the process to be a political and not legal one, Australian and US observers say.

Robert Richter, QC, one of Australia's most experienced criminal lawyers and a Hicks supporter, said the trial was a sham that had wholly discredited the Pentagon's war-crimes process.

"The charade that took place at Guantanamo Bay would have done Stalin's show trials proud," Mr Richter said in a commentary for The Sunday Age.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/trial-would-have-done-stalin-proud--lawyer/2007/04/01/1175366080770.html

[sam sarrha]

1. i have a book called POX about Syphilis causing the Megalomaniacs of History..who do that shit, mayb...

he was drunk and stoned enough, long enough to score a hit of syphilis..

[Jonathan50]

2. A declaration that he was never tortured..

Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

[annabanana]

3. I wonder how they got him to sign it. . . . . .

Every supposition is suspect now. There is no way we can trust a word spoken in regard to that facility of the damned.

[Jonathan50]

7. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

-George Orwell

[cali]

4. Fuckers.

I hope Hicks spurns the gag order and talks, and talks, and talks.

[otherlander]

5. Once his sentence is over and he's released

what's going to stop him from breaking the gag order?

[Selatius]

6. He will break it, but the US gov't is only worried about US public opinion.

In the US, the government can claim that Hicks is lying because he admitted that he wasn't tortured at all and that he signed the documents stating to that effect.

[no safe haven]

8. Too late, already on record

Hicks has already documented his and others’ torture at Guantanamo in an affidavit he made last year when he attempted to apply for UK citizenship – so he could get out of Gitmo like four other Britons.

Check it out here:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1887902.htm

The whole process is a sham and a disgrace.

[WinkyDink]

9. Why do you think Bush has that term on his brain, using "show trials" for Democratic investigations?

It's his guilty psychopathology speaking/projecting.