iron curtain howard did deal on hicks

Is this more of the same brand of lies to the Australian people from our government?

Cheney, Howard 'did deal on Hicks'
Posted 2 hours 37 minutes ago
Updated 41 minutes ago


Deal on Hicks: John Howard welcomes US Vice-President D!ck Cheney to his office in Sydney (AFP: Torsten Blackwood)

Audio: Hicks control order bid sparks public outrage (The World Today) Related Story: Hicks to face control order Related Link: At Gitmo, no room for justice US Vice-President D!ck Cheney agreed to a deal with Prime Minister John Howard to release former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, a US media report says.

The report, published in Harper's Magazine, cites an unnamed US military officer saying that a military staffer was present when Mr Cheney interfered directly to seal Hicks's plea bargain deal.

"He [Mr Cheney] did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with [Australian Prime Minister] Howard," the unnamed source is quoted as saying.

"I kept thinking: this is the sort of thing that used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, not in America.

"And then it struck me how much this entire process had disintegrated into a political charade. It's demoralising for all of us."

After five years of detention in Guantanamo Bay, a deal was sealed for 32-year-old Hicks to serve a nine-month prison sentence in Australia, subject to him pleading guilty to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

Hicks agreed to the deal in March and is now due for release from Adelaide's Yatala Prison at the end of the year.

After the deal was announced, Mr Howard denied any involvement in the plea bargain.

"We didn't impose the sentence, the sentence was imposed by the military commission and the plea bargain was worked out between the military prosecution and Mr Hicks' lawyers," Mr Howard said in March.

Mr Howard also rejected claims by Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown in March that the Prime Minister wanted Hicks not be released until after the election.

"And the suggestion from (Greens leader) Senator Brown, that it has something to do with the Australian elections, is absurd," Mr Howard said at the time.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also denies Mr Cheney was involved in negotiations regarding Hicks.

He says while Mr Howard discussed the Hicks case with Mr Cheney when he visited Australia a month before the plea deal, there was no direct political interference.

"No, you can only do a plea bargain of course with the accused," he said.

"D!ck Cheney couldn't do a plea bargain, or I do a plea bargain with Defence Secretary Gates or whatever - no that's not how it works.

"It has to be done by the prosecution with the defendant and that is what happened."


'Questionable timing'

Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja says the timing of news regarding the control order is questionable, given the pending federal election and revelations in the US press.

"Many of its backbenchers would be curious to hear this information today, as would the Australian people and Australian media," she said.

"So it's contingent upon the Australian Government at the highest levels - the Prime Minister and the A-G - to explain if this is the case, has there been the political interference and involvement in the case of David Hicks, when we've been told the contrary, all through this process?

"David Hicks's repatriation to Australia, albeit a very belated one, we were told did not involve high level political interference."

"Now you can't get much higher than the Vice-President of the United States and of course, the Prime Minister of our country, so time to come clean."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/23/2067496.htm