Just days after we reported that David Hicks who spent nearly 6 years banged up in Guantanamo Bay, attended a party for the Wayside Chapel at Boomerang (and the Daily Telegraph said he was "partying with the jet-set), Liberal Senator George Brandis (left) has accused the ruling Labor government of not moving quickly to recover the profits from David Hicks's memoirs under the "proceeds of crime" laws because it "fears a backlash from the political left."
Oh really ?
Brandis was one of the chief cheerleaders of former PM John Howard who solemnly intoned in Parliament in 2003 that Iraq was awash with WMD and described in detail the non existent "human shredding machines" that Saddam Hussein was prone to use on his subjects.
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| David Hicks |
Howard later indicated that Australian SAS troops had already entered Iraq weeks before a decision to go to war had been made- one he himself decided he had the power to make without a Parliamentary vote unlike our allies the UK & USA - and soon we were participating in a war that has seen a million Iraqis displaced and hundreds of thousands killed on a slew of falsehoods.
Does George Brandis honestly want a case to be pursued against Hicks over the profits from his 'crime' ?.
Most except the most pedantic accept that the reason Hicks pleaded guilty was to get out of the hell-hole in Cuba where he faced year upon year of incarceration without trial.
The US chief Army prosecutor at Gitmo who resigned (one of at least 7) over the disgraceful legal tactics there has said Hicks should never have been charged and his case was riddled with political interference from both Howard and George W.Bush.
The charges labelled against Hicks were a bizarre mish mash of gobbedlly gook that accused him of being an 'enemy combatant' in a 'war' which was, and wasn't declared and therefore after some Olympian leaps of logic the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to those captured.
A case against Hicks in an Australian court to recover any profits made from his book would surely bring out the most learned legal minds just itching to examine the role of a whole host of US & Australian politicians. The repercussions could be most unpleasant especially for George Brandis' (an intelligent barrister who parrots absurdities that he surely cannot believe) beloved John Howard. ( According to rumour Brandis once referred to John Howard as "that lying rodent Howard".He's never denied it)
Brandis may well find that what he wishes for may just happen. The outcome may not be what he desires.
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| Ben Ferencz |
To read the Alice in Wonderland type case that was mounted against Hicks his Wikipedia entry is most illuminating.
## Now 90 years old the legendary legal mind Ben Ferencz was the US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials and he sent several Nazis to the their execution after WW2. He eventually went to work for the International Criminal Court and has been an outspoken advocate for the rule of law during his distinguished career as well as a critic of various government's illicit activities.
Ferencz gave a speech on the 8th March titled :
