[NYTr] Cheney, Howard 'did deal' on Gitmo Gulag Captive Hicks

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller - southnews

ABC News Online Australia - Oct 23, 2007
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/23/2067496.htm

Cheney, Howard 'did deal on Hicks'

US Vice-President Dick 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.

"Dick 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."



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