Hicks case flawed all along: prosecutor

THE Pentagon's former chief prosecutor has admitted he never wanted to pursue charges against the Australian terrorism suspect David Hicks.

Mr Hicks's family and lawyer claimed vindication yesterday after the US Air Force Colonel, Moe Davis - appearing as a witness at a pre-trial hearing for another Guantanamo Bay inmate - said the Australian was not worth charging because he was not considered as serious an offender as other inmates.

But Colonel Davis said he had "inherited" the Hicks case from another prosecutor and was under political pressure to press charges. He had wanted to pursue cases that warranted 20-year sentences, which did not include Mr Hicks. He said the plea bargain to which Mr Hicks agreed to get out of Guantanamo Bay had been organised without his knowledge.

Colonel Davis was once a strident defender of the military commission process and a harsh critic of Mr Hicks and his military lawyer, Major Michael Mori. He resigned as chief prosecutor late last year, saying he had been forced to make inappropriate decisions. At Monday's pre-trial hearing, Colonel Davis criticised the military commissions as being tainted by politics and using evidence gained by coercion.

Mr Hicks's Adelaide lawyer, David McLeod, said "the worm has turned".

"Perhaps the Australian public can now reflect on why it was that David Hicks pleaded guilty when the choice was return to Australia or be a subject to an indefinite political process of detention at Guantanamo," he said. "It is total vindication of what the other [US] senior prosecutors said in emails in 2005 that the process was rigged, politically rigged."

Mr McLeod said he appreciated Colonel Davis's candour, even if it was after the event. "It goes to show what happens when you remove the shackles and take the officer out of the corporate environment and allow him to speak his mind."

Mr Hicks's father, Terry, said he was frustrated. "I've been saying this all along, that the process was lopsided," he said. "What's happening now is these people are getting out of the system and they are starting to vent their views."

Colonel Davis had been testifying in the case against Osama bin Laden's alleged driver, the Yemeni prisoner Salim Hamdan. Colonel Davis had been called to boost the case to have charges against Hamdan thrown out because the tribunal process was too tainted to provide a fair trial.

In March last year, David Hicks pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of providing material support to terrorism to get out of Guantanamo Bay. He was sent to jail in Adelaide and was released on December 31. Once described by the Bush Administration as "the worst of the worst", he is now a free man and living a quiet life.

It was widely suspected the plea bargain followed the Howard government pressuring the US to hurry up because the Hicks case had become a political liability in an election year.

Terry Hicks said his son had no wish to comment. "He's not ready for anything yet."

with agencies