Hicks Pleads Guilty, Will Get Maximum 7 Years

Mar 30, 05:53 PM

Current Headlines: By Carol Rosenberg, The Miami Herald

Mar. 30--GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Australian David Hicks, who as a 25-year-old trained and served with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty here to supporting terrorism in exchange for serving no more than seven years jailed in his homeland.

In return, Hicks, now 31, will be allowed to leave Guantanamo within 60 days of sentencing, concluding the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II. That means he'll be gone in June.

Under a complex plea agreement, he agreed to a one-year media gag, to forever waive any profit from telling his story, to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention -- and to voluntarily submit to U.S. interrogation and to testify at future U.S. trials or international tribunals.

A panel of senior U.S. military officers was en route to this remote U.S. Navy base later Friday to hear the details of his crime -- providing material support for terrorism -- and hand down a sentence.

The short, stocky, one-time kangaroo skinner turned soldier of fortune stood ramrod straight in a charcoal suit and tie, with a trim, styled haircut, after he admitted to a 35-point narrative, which included taking four training courses with al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks.

At one point, he admitted, he personally asked of Osama bin Laden why he offered no training manuals.

He also admitted to standing guard with an AK-47 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, first at Kandahar Airport, later beside a Taliban tank. He said he was engaged in two hours of combat with U.S. proxy Northern Alliance troops, but did not admit to ever firing a shot.

Still secret was a side-deal by the Pentagon official in charge of the military commissions, called the Convening Authority, to suspend part of Hicks' sentence if the military commission panel returns the full, seven-year maximum.

Either way, the agreement made clear that his five years held here as an enemy combatant would not count toward any sentence.

Just four days ago, at his arraignment, he looked a disheveled and disheartened man in a tan prison camp uniform and sporting long straggly hair down his back.

In contrast, he looked relieved Friday morning while soberly answering two hours of questions from Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, a military judge, with short replies of "yes, sir."

In the final agreement, both sides eliminated some of the most explosive parts of his initial charge sheet -- that he had discussed going on a suicide mission with a senior al Qaeda leader, that he had met the so-called shoe-bomber Richard Reid and that he fought in the same unit as John Walker Lindh, who was at Mazar i Sharif when CIA agent Mike "Johnny" Span was killed in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Asked what evidence he had been shown to conclude a U.S. military tribunal would find him guilty, he replied: "Notes from interrogations taken from me or other people."

The trial could go to the deliberation and sentencing phase later Friday after examination by a panel of senior officers, mostly colonels, and possibly Hicks addressing the panel himself.

Kohlmann announced the agreement in a lengthy morning session that set out a 25-item narrative, which included admitting to conducting surveillance at a former U.S. Embassy in Kabul and expressing approval of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- which he learned about while watching TV on break from al Qaeda training in Pakistan.

It said he had no prior personal knowledge of the terrorist attacks, but returned to Afghanistan on Sept. 12 to volunteer his services with al Qaeda and the Taliban.

While guarding a Taliban tank in October 2001, according to the narrative included in the plea agreement, he got regular updates from "a fat al Qaeda leader in charge who was on a bicycle."

The agreement made no mention of the former Christian-born Outback cowboy's conversion to Islam, nor prior paramilitary activity in the former Yugoslavia.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald

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