Geoff Elliott, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba | March 27, 2007
CHIEF prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis said today that David Hicks's guilty plea meant the Australian terror suspect could be winging his way home in a matter of months.
Hicks would be sentenced by the end of the week, under a deal in which Hicks can serve out any more time to be served in an Australian jail, Colonel Davis said.
"My best guess is that in the next few days we will wrap this up," he told reporters.
"Somebody asked a long time ago if it was possible that he would be home by the end of the year - if I was a betting man I would say the odds are pretty good.''
A panel of ten military commissioned officers with five alternates had previously been selected by the Military convening authority and a minimum of five will be travelling to Guantanamo Bay over the next few days in order to sit in court and decide a sentence for Hicks.
Adelaide-born Hicks entered a guilty plea today before a US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hicks has been held more than five years at the US-run prison.
Hicks's military attorney entered the plea on behalf of his client, who stood alongside with a sombre expression.
Earlier he had reserved his rights to enter a plea, raising speculation that perhaps a plea deal was afoot.
Protective orders from the judge prevented lawyers from both sides from commenting specifically about what led to today's dramatic about face from Hicks to enter a guilty plea.
Colonel Davis said it was incorrect to describe the guilty plea as part of a plea agreement but he acknowledged that both the prosecution and defence had previously discussed a deal at which the kind of sentence Hicks could expect was discussed.
Colonel Davis said a guilty plea was a mitigating factor, indicating that it would warrant a lesser sentence but there is speculation about how long that might be.
Hicks faced life imprisonment but Colonel Davis had argued that his case was more in line with that of fellow Taliban traveller John Walker Lindh, a US citizen who was sentenced to 20 years in jail. A much lesser sentence than that can now be expected.
Tomorrow Hicks, with his defence counsel, will meet again with the judge and the prosecution in a closed conference at which Hicks will outline specifically to the judge what he is pleading guilty to under the first count.
There was no indication of what deal has been reached, Judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann reconvening the court at 830pm local time to say he had been approached by counsel after court had recessed earlier advising that Hicks "desired to enter a plea''.
Hicks’s US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, entered the plea to the charge of material support for terrorism which was broken into two counts or specifications.
Major Mori rose and said Hicks pled guilty on specification one, and not guilty on specification two.
Specification one of the charge detailed at length Hicks's links to terrorist organisations and his activities in Afghanistan where he met Osama bin Laden and completed al-Qa'ida training courses.
Specification two simply alleged that Hicks entered Afghanistan from about December 2000 to December 2001 to provide support for terrorism and that he did so in “in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict namely al-Qa'ida or its associated forces against the United States or its coalition partners”.
