The only thing we know about Hicks is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it is all we will ever know. After so long in an American torture camp there is no truth. A number of non Aghanis were picked up US invasion forces more were bought from the Northern Alliance. All we know about these people is that they were there. I have not been in Aghanistan for many years but I found it a totally facinating place, I always regret not staying longer.
UK and the Europeans demanded the return of their citizens Howard did not. He wants us to be patriotic but his inaction he makes being Australian meaningless

I cant belive this topic gets so hot on afghans Taliban’s U.S and all other countries what’s wrong with us today we have our courts our supermax 23hours lock ups.
Bill scaff the rapping dog gets a fair trial he gets to see his family on weekly visits, Ivan milat gets a fair trial and weekly visits. For god sake we have child killer rapists that get parole and get to sunbake nude near children recreational areas and still get a word in our courts. The Bali bombers get their say in court in their country. Bali bombers left to be jugged by there own not taken to Guantanimo bay.
Bring hicks back to Australia, we fight besides the U.S, we deserve the wrights and respect to try our own.
Mate if we are not good enough to try our own then why are we good enough to send our own to a war that is not ours.
it was stated by Osama bin laden to Australia. "you are a mutual country, we have no problems with Australia" but we got involved and we helped our allies then we became a target and now we cant try one of our own terrorist.
We are who we are, I guess, to young to dumb. Thank you, that is the statement we are given by our allies.
My heart goes out to hicks family, all victims and the families of victims of terrorism the true martyrs.
It is believed in islam to kill a person you are to take all there sins with your self to hell and the victim is given eternal paradise. I challenge any learned Muslim to justify terrorism I know they cant so if their is a fool have a go.

Peace be to all.

Personally I am sick to death of debating Hick's beliefs, morality, loyalty or any of that stuff. It is irrelevant to point at hand.

The point is simply this: Is Hicks is entitled to a speedy trial in a fair court of his peers with full access to the evidence against him with the presumption of innocence.

Arguments about new forms of terrorism or outraged gnashing of teeth about betrayal of 'our way of life' is all smokescreen.

This is a binary decision set. The response is either 'yes because I believe in the rule of law' or 'no because I don't believe in the rule of law'.

There is no room to equivocate. Either the law applies to everyone or it applies to no one.

As for 'no danger of being gravely mistreated'. Leaving aside the wealth of evidence that says GITMO is not your average holiday camp, I'd contend that 5 years imprisonment without charges or a trial would be considered a grave mistreatment in most people's book.

The ironic part about this whole mess is that little Johnny has probably made both his and Bush's lives more problematic by NOT insisting on Hick's return earlier. Without Hicks, there would be no white faces in GITMO and, more than likely, it would have fallen away from our fickle news focus, left to languish in the hands of the NGO like Amnesty. Instead it is shaping up to be a key election issue that will force both Howard and Bush into making further embarrassing backdowns.

I guess those birds really do come home to roost eventually.

Three more cheers for mylakhrion.

It isn't a simple question of yes or no. That is just your simple interpretation that allows for a simplistic answer. Laws are not created for everyone. They're created to answer to specific situations or conditions. There are many laws on the books that rarely see the light of a court room but, if the occasion arises, there they are. I especially like your implication that the USA is only holding Hicks cuz he's white and that's the reason it's in the news.
What you should do is lobby for Australia to be come the world depository and courts centre for global terrorist judicial hearings and sentencing as well as take over the responsibility and cost from the Americans and there fore some of the news attacks for not living up to individualist ideologues and expectations of your personal time lines.

Firstly- a correction. I don't think Hicks is being held because he's white. I think this issue is still being debated so openly BECAUSE he's white. There are more than a hundred other men at GITMO but who knows any of their names? They're all subject to the same lack of justice as Hicks but I'm confident that this issue will disappear once Hicks is returned.

Secondly- why would I advocate for Australia to be trial destination for global terrorists? We don't need that sort of headache. Either the courts of the aggrieved nations or the international courts are suitable. Likewise, no one asked the US to keep Hicks and the others at GITMO for all this time at whatever cost. They did that thenselves.

But these are still red herrings.

My position is simplistic? Maybe it looks like that, but I believe I'm proposing the harder option. I would argue its very easy to say "this is a special case, so therefore we can ignore the rules". This is the emotionally satisfying option. It allows for rage and revenge. It doesn't require us to exert ourselves in any fashion. Rather, it allows us to relax the ideals of civilization and let our baser emotions run free.

Instead, I believe giving Hicks a fair trial is the harder option. It requires us to retain the strictures of civilization. It requires us to argue a case on its merits. And it requires us to acknowledge the fact that we might be wrong. Harder still, it requires us to accept that we may not have the right rules in place BEFORE the alleged crime was committed and therefore we have to release him because we as a commuity did not say that what he did was wrong before he did it.

No- this is not a simplistic answer. This is by far the hardest.

There may be many laws but there's only one forum for exercising them- court. Even crimes involving manditory sentences must still be brought to trial. This is what's been denied Hicks and his fellow detainees for too long.