Davis: Pressure To Rush David Hicks’ Trial Came Day After Australian Ambassador Meeting
Davis: Pressure To Rush David Hicks’ Trial Came Day After Australian Ambassador Meeting
In March 2007, Australian native David Hicks, who was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, became the first person to be sentenced by a military commission convened under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Last February, Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor in Hicks’ trial, told the Australian that the Pentagon “leaned on” him to rush Hicks’ trial, even though at the time he “had no regulations for trial by military commissions.”
In an interview with WAMU’s Diane Rehm yesterday, Morris added details of how “political influence” was involved in Hicks’ trial. On January 9, 2007, Davis says the Defense Department’s general counsel, William Haynes, called him up and asked, “how quickly can you charge David Hicks?”
Davis then noted that Haynes call came the day after “there was a meeting with the Australian ambassador” to the United States:
DAVIS: So, the major pieces were not in place and I’m having the DoD general counsel calling me up, the day after there was a meeting with the Australian ambassador, asking, “how quickly I could charge David Hicks.”
Listen here:
Bush administration political appointees appear to have meddled in Hicks’ case in order to help their key conservative ally, Australian Prime Minister John Howard. In early 2007, Howard was facing a serious electoral challenge from Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who eventually went on to defeat him. Hicks’ incarceration at Guantanamo Bay was a contentious issue in Australian politics at the time.
In February 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Howard in Australia, where the PM lobbied for the trial to “be brought on as soon as humanly possible and with no further delay.” A month later, Hicks was sentenced and released back to Australia with critics airing suspicions that Cheney had interceded.
In October 2007, an anonymous military officer told Harper’s Scott Horton that “Cheney interfered directly to get Hicks’s plea bargain deal” as “part of a deal cut” with Howard.
Transcript:
EHM: I would like to have a specific example of how you believe in your case political influence was involved?DAVIS: Well, I can give you an example of, I believe it was on January 9 of 2007, Jim Haynes was the DoD general counsel. He had been nominated for a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, he had been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but before he came up for a vote of the full Senate, you know, what became known as the torture policy, the torture memos surfaced, became an impediment for his confirmation. So, my first year on the job, Mr. Haynes had pretty much had a hands off policy. He had minimal contact with me about military commissions. On January 9 ‘07 of the night that President Bush announced he had withdrawn the nomination of Jim Haynes for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and two hours later, Mr. Haynes calls me up and says, “how quickly can you charge David Hicks?” You know, at that point in time, we had that statute in place, the Military Commissions Act, we had no convening authority, we had no manual for military commissions, we had no regulations for trial by military commission. So, the major pieces were not in place and I’m having the DoD general counsel calling me up, the day after there was a meeting with the Australian ambassador, asking, “how quickly I could charge David Hicks.”
REHM: Were you told specifically that there were not to be any acquittals?
DAVIS: There was a meeting, which I would call a hiring interview on August 2 of 2005, where I met with Mr. Haynes before being appointed as chief prosecutor. During that meeting, Mr. Haynes brought up that these trials would be the Nuremberg of our times, and I told him that during Nuremberg, there were some acquittals, and certainly as a prosecutor, you never go into court aiming for an acquittal, but I said in my view, if that should happen, that at least it in some respects would tend to validate that this is a fair process. And that was when he kind of, it struck me as he never considered that thought before that there could be acquittals. And he looked at me and said, “acquittals? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve been holding these guys for years. How would we explain that if we had acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
I guess since Hicks is an Aussie, we can truly call this a ‘Kangaroo Kourt” now?
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:18 pmyou scratch my back……
gotta love an executive branch that handles world affairs like an old mobster movie….
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:19 pmAsk yourself why Osama’s alleged driver is now on trial. It’s not simply to prove the proof of concept of military tribunals. Think, people.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:20 pmSo the right side would ruin a persons life for a little political ‘bump’? Who could have anticipated the breach of the legal profession?
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pmUpside ~ @#1 - BWAAAHAHAH!! Nice. Nothing like a little political meddling, er pressure to get the Pentangle to make up some rules and get this guy done.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:32 pmWhere’s the Saudi ambassador when we really need him??
Wasn’t part of that deal that Hicks was required to keep quiet until after Australia’s next election? Has he told his story since?
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm“acquittals? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve been holding these guys for years. How would we explain that if we had acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.”
Acquittals? We don’ need no stinkin acquittals!!
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:34 pmWayne, you’re forgetting the part where they informed him that granting interviews would be signing his assassination warrant…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:35 pmI wonder. Since Mr. Howard lost the election, is there a CIA hit squad after Hicks? It just seems like he could become an “embarrassment”. snark/off
StratRat:
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 pmSince they seem Hell-bent on destroying all that was once great about our country and and have spread discord around the globe? They would be willing to ruin a person’s life just for kicks. That’s what evil people do.
And he looked at me and said, “acquittals? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve been holding these guys for years. How would we explain that if we had acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.”
And if that doesn’t sum up neo-con thinking, I don’t know what would. They do not have any understanding of what a criminal justice system is supposed to do. In their minds, a trial is about convicting a person, not establishing whether or not he committee the act for which he is being tried.
And I believe that if anyone were “acquitted” during one of these sham commission hearings, the person would either be held in jail anyway or just charged with some other crime so they could be tried again.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 pmpete Says:
StratRat:
Since they seem Hell-bent on destroying all that was once great about our country and and have spread discord around the globe? They would be willing to ruin a person’s life just for kicks. That’s what evil people do.
Yep….And this is another reason Britain won’t take our assurances any longer about torture and rendition. Kind of weird to be disliked and not trusted by our number one ally.
Do we have any friends on the planet anymore? I mean except for Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm#11, uh,NO…..Do I get the “boobie prize”?..Skip the boobie part, I have a pair, just send the prize…Blessings
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pmNo!!! You’re kidding me….the Bush Crime Family would corrupt the DoMJ to get something done for political reasons, I’m shocked.
Well, we are all on their terrorist list anyway, so when the false flag attack comes, (again) they can round us up, I hope those “Detention Centers” have Cable HDTV and video games.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pmWitch1 Says:
#11, uh,NO…..Do I get the “boobie prize”?..Skip the boobie part, I have a pair, just send the prize…Blessings
Well, first prize is one BBQ with John McCain. Second prize is two BBQ’s with John McCain.
I take it you want your prize “to go”? We do deliver.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:53 pmYou know, beginning in early 2000, we had WHIG, the White House Iraq Group. Who put that together? Cheney.
Later that same year, we had the WH Energy Task Force.
Who put that together? Cheney.
The next September, we had 9/11. Who put that together? …..
By late 2002, we heard the first signs of invading Iraq?
Who put that together? Cheney.
Is their a pattern here? Could the guy who nominated himself for VP possibly be this corrupt and malicious? Bet on it.
Howard was despised in Australia nearly as much as Cheney here.
They’re two peas in a pod.
History may not be kind to Cheney, but let’s hope action other than history give him his just reward.
Chuck Feney & the 10 gallon hat he rode in on…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm#14 Please fill the BBQ with a ton on briquett’s, light and load the pig inside for the trip..Will have the mover’s dump the content’s in the Nevada desert for the starving vulture’s…It will be a good day for wild life and after the scrub down I will have a new prize to cook steak on..Many thank’s…Blessings
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:58 pmCheney rules! What sham justice we stand for since the first Bush-Gore election was stolen with the duplicity of Repugnant Court.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pmAnd now Bob Novak appears to have had a little Hit and Run this morning. “Party of accountability” says, “I didn’t know I hit him”.
http://www.cbsnews.com/ stories/ 2008/ 07/ 23/ politics/ politico/ main4286279.shtml
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:34 pmThere’s a thread on that pete.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:39 pmDid the Aussie PM give a donation to the Bush Library to get his Cheney access?
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:01 pmDavid’s gag order has expired. Still no press about this…. Hmmm, ya think that a lot of people were paid off from some slush fund to keep everybody quiet?
If the big dick is involved, I’m sure they have some blackwater mercenaries involved with some type of suppression.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:48 pm