Guantanamo detainee David Hicks starts sentence in Adelaide prison


David Hicks, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried by a US military tribunal, was in a maximum-security prison in Adelaide yesterday after being flown home to his native Australia. - Kathy Marks - How many people did David Hicks kill? How many was he even responsble for killing? How many has John Howard killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many has Blair killed? Bush-Cheney? So who are the ones who should be in a maximum security prison together with other notorious killers of scores (in this case scores of thousands) of human beings? - WPA


By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 21 May 2007

David Hicks, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried by a US military tribunal, was in a maximum-security prison in Adelaide yesterday after being flown home to his native Australia.

Under an agreement with US prosecutors, most of Hicks's seven-year sentence was suspended, and the former kangaroo skinner will be freed at the end of December. In exchange, he pleaded guilty to giving "material support" to al-Qa'ida.

Hicks, 31, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, was held at the prison camp in Cuba for five years, most of that time without charge. He became a cause célèbre in Australia, and a source of political embarrassment to John Howard's government, which was accused of abandoning him.

He arrived home in a private jet which landed a military base on the outskirts of Adelaide. His lawyer, who accompanied him on the flight, said he was "visibly elated" when the plane touched down.

Hicks, shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit, was taken to Yatala jail, where he has been assigned to a wing which houses two of Australia's most notorious killers, John Bunting and Robert Wagner, who were convicted of 18 murders.


Last Updated May 21, 2007 7:12 AM

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