That the Americans know no bounds in their approach to trying those poor souls, including David Hicks, [see yesterday's posting] still imprisoned at Gitmo, Mike Carlton in his column in the SMH today writes:
"The latest twist of the David Hicks haters is to remind us that he once decided he wanted to be known as Mohammed Dawood. That wickedness, they shout, is evidence enough that he was plotting with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden to destroy all that we hold dear. If taking a Muslim name has become a crime, you fear for the future of Mohammed Ali.
Another curious gambit is to bluster that the delay in bringing Hicks to trial is all his own fault. If he and his lawyers had not indulged in those frivolous but inexplicably successful appeals to the US Federal and Supreme courts, a Pentagon military commission could have had the whole thing tidily done and dusted years ago.
The chief military prosecutor, Colonel Moe Davis, has been preparing a fresh list of charges to throw at Hicks. One of them, newly invented, would be of "providing material assistance to the enemy". There, again, is another fundamental injustice. To put it simply, there is a bedrock principle of the common law that you cannot be tried retrospectively; that is, you cannot be charged with a crime that did not exist on the books when you were arrested. This is now what they are trying to do with Hicks.
But such niceties do not concern Davis who, when we spoke this week, appeared to be not the sharpest tool in the shed. He tried to assure me that a jury would decide the Hicks business. "A jury," I asked, "of 12 uniformed colonels, all seated in a row?"
He reluctantly conceded it would be. "In which case," I suggested, "the US military would be prosecutor, judge, jury and, possibly, executioner."
"I take great exception to that," the colonel barked down the phone. So do I, but for different reasons."
"The latest twist of the David Hicks haters is to remind us that he once decided he wanted to be known as Mohammed Dawood. That wickedness, they shout, is evidence enough that he was plotting with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden to destroy all that we hold dear. If taking a Muslim name has become a crime, you fear for the future of Mohammed Ali.
Another curious gambit is to bluster that the delay in bringing Hicks to trial is all his own fault. If he and his lawyers had not indulged in those frivolous but inexplicably successful appeals to the US Federal and Supreme courts, a Pentagon military commission could have had the whole thing tidily done and dusted years ago.
The chief military prosecutor, Colonel Moe Davis, has been preparing a fresh list of charges to throw at Hicks. One of them, newly invented, would be of "providing material assistance to the enemy". There, again, is another fundamental injustice. To put it simply, there is a bedrock principle of the common law that you cannot be tried retrospectively; that is, you cannot be charged with a crime that did not exist on the books when you were arrested. This is now what they are trying to do with Hicks.
But such niceties do not concern Davis who, when we spoke this week, appeared to be not the sharpest tool in the shed. He tried to assure me that a jury would decide the Hicks business. "A jury," I asked, "of 12 uniformed colonels, all seated in a row?"
He reluctantly conceded it would be. "In which case," I suggested, "the US military would be prosecutor, judge, jury and, possibly, executioner."
"I take great exception to that," the colonel barked down the phone. So do I, but for different reasons."
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