Hicks' Sentence to Be Limited to 7 Years

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Hicks' Sentence to Be Limited to 7 Years


Friday March 30, 2007 2:46 PM

AP Photo SYD103

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - The prison sentence of an Australian detainee
who pleaded guilty to a terrorism-related charge would be limited to seven years under
terms of a plea bargain, a military judge at Guantanamo Bay said Friday.

The judge, Marine Corps. Col. Ralph Kohlmann, revealed the terms of the agreement at a
hearing Friday on whether to accept David Hicks' guilty plea. It was not immediately
clear whether the maximum sentence accounts for the five years Hicks has already spent
at Guantanamo Bay. Under an agreement between the United States and Australia, Hicks
will serve any sentence in Australia.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6520566,00.html

[Lautremont]

1. Even if he is a hick, it's not the nicest thing to say.

I think "Rural person" would suffice.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Well, since he's already done 5 years, I think that should count against the sentence.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Everything I've read about him suggests that he's not some sort of

terrorist mastermind but a lost soul who drifted around the world (not an unusual thing for Australians to do, by the way) and was susceptible to anything someone could talk him into.

[pitohui]

7. people like that cause half the trouble of the world

a lost soul who drifted around the world... and was susceptible to anything someone could talk him into

people like that will never do anything but harm in the world, not that this justifies torture or holding someone so long without trial, but i have little sympathy having been badly harmed by this type of person, they are tools just waiting to be used by any random sociopath let alone terrorist, if you're susceptible to doing "anything someone could talk" you into, the least bad thing you usually end up doing is carrying or selling drugs

these kind of losers do real harm to their friends and family, i guess it's inevitable that one of them would stumble into a terrorist organization

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Judge accepts Hicks guilty plea at Gitmo

Source: AP

By MICHAEL MELIA Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A military judge accepted an Australian's guilty plea to supporting terrorism Friday under a deal that will send the Guantanamo detainee to jail at home for less than seven years, but requires silence about any alleged abuse while in custody.

In the first conviction at a U.S. war-crimes trial since World War II, David Hicks, a 31-year-old kangaroo skinner and confessed Taliban-allied gunman, told Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann that he agreed to plead guilty because prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.

Speaking in a deep voice, Hicks said he faced especially damning evidence taken from "notes by interrogators" that he had been shown.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4676031.html

---

"but requires silence about any alleged abuse while in custody."

Hicks is under a gag order. News to me. I had not seen this detail in earlier reports.

[ret5hd]

5. I heard this on NPR on the way home from work...

Plead guilty and keep your mouth shut about those electrodes we stuck up yer ass

OR

we'll keep you here for the rest of your worthless motherf*%#in' life.

What's your answer?

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. THERE IS NO FUCKING JUDGE

This is extra-judicial pure and simple. There is no fucking judge. There might be some ideological flack pretending to act as a judge, but there is no fucking judge. This is a farce. Bring the man up for charges is a reasonable manner with reasonable jurisprudence, or set him loose. Those are the options.