HICKS is any Australian who can be picked up by the US , sodomized, tortured and imprisoned tll he/she confesses to whatever .

PRINCEANDY

2007-04-01 22:57:30 UTC

This is what Howard and his liberals believe in and support. They stood by
for 5 years as they will in the case of any citizen , even if innocent,
allowing their US friends and local israeli patriots to enjoy the spectacle
of patriotic Australians who do not give israel the support they would like
being used as the playthings of the specially recruited bush armed services,
recruited only if they sign to being able to torture anyone young, old, male
or female.

So george john and israeli patriots have created a legal well paid positions
for paedofiles, rapists, sadists and other sickos who should be in a mental
institution , which would not cost any more thanm employing them to set up
torture chambers.

And if innocent to bad, they will be forced to not speak about the horrors
inflicted on them till after the next election.
So john and his little band of israeli patriots and any supporting
paedofiles, sadists and rapists can again enjoy another stint in
government.

Detainee's plea deal angers some legal experts
If Hicks was such a menace, critics argue, why did he get just nine
months?
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
April 1, 2007
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA - The first war-crimes trial here drew outrage
Saturday from legal experts who described it as a perversion of the
rule of law that may fatally discredit the Pentagon's already
disparaged handling of terrorism suspects.
Australian detainee David Hicks, whom prosecutors cast as a highly
trained and dangerous Al Qaeda operative, will be out of prison
before the year ends because of a secret deal cut by the Bush
administration appointee overseeing the military commissions.
The jury went through the motions: The panel of senior military
officers flew in from around the world, deliberated for two hours and
sentenced Hicks - who had entered a guilty plea - to what they'd been
told was the maximum term of seven years.
But the person overseeing the tribunals, veteran Defense Department
lawyer Susan J. Crawford, had bypassed the prosecution and cut a
pretrial deal directly with the defense to suspend all but nine
months of any sentence rendered in exchange for the guilty plea.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is one of Washington's closest
allies in the war on terrorism, and his Liberal Party had been
flagging in this election year because of public resentment of Hicks'
being held without charges at Guantanamo for more than five years.
Bringing his case to the war-crimes tribunal first, and before all the
procedural guidance was ready, left the impression with many legal
analysts that Crawford stepped in to do Howard a favor - at the
expense of the commissions' credibility.
Even the chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, issued what
seemed a subtle dig at the plea deal made behind his back. After
offering sincere congratulations to Hicks' military defense lawyer,
Marine Maj. Michael Mori, he said he also wanted to thank Howard's
government for everything it had done to bring closure to the case.
Davis said that the lenient sentence was negotiated without his input
and that he signed off on the pretrial agreement because opposing it
would have been "a symbolic move."
The Hicks deal followed by only a day Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates' expression of concern before a congressional committee that
because of Guantanamo's reputation in the world, the tribunal
verdicts were going to lack credibility.
Friday's "machinations" in the Hicks trial and international reaction
to the hand-slap sentence "suggest the accuracy of Gates' Thursday
testimony about global perceptions of the military trials held at
Guantanamo," said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.
Legal analysts condemned the first completed case as fresh evidence
that the detention and prosecution are unjust and immoral.
"From the beginning, the Hicks proceedings have illustrated everything
that's wrong with these military commissions," said Maureen Byrnes,
executive director of Human Rights First.
"The plea deal in particular has the taint of coerced statements and
secrecy. The deal effectively censors anything Mr. Hicks might allege
about what he says he suffered and implausibly characterizes the last
five years of his detention as justified under the laws of war."
As a condition for the light sentence, Hicks was compelled to state
that he has never been "illegally treated" in U.S. custody. He also
had to promise not to bring any legal actions against U.S. officials
or citizens for any reason.
"Add in the widespread perception that the plea deal was in part the
result of intense political and diplomatic pressures, and the
conclusion is inescapable that these military commissions don't deal
justice, they deny it," Byrnes said.
The prohibition against Hicks ever claiming he was "illegally
treated" in U.S. custody contradicted sworn statements submitted in
his attempt to obtain British citizenship and a more protective home
government.
The statement to a British court said he had been repeatedly beaten,
sodomized and forced into painful positions during interrogations.
Melbourne lawyer Robert Richter wrote in a commentary for Sunday's
The Age newspaper of Melbourne that the Hicks trial was a sham that
has wholly discredited the Pentagon's war-crimes process.
"The charade that took place at Guantanamo Bay would have done
Stalin's show trials proud," Richter said. "First there was
indefinite detention without charge. Then there was the torture,
however the Bush lawyers, including his attorney general, might
choose to describe it. Then there was the extorted confession of
guilt."
Other legal analysts saw the nine-month term as suspiciously
accommodating of Australia's election season as the deal keeps Hicks
out of the public arena until just after the vote expected by
December.
"It might just be a coincidence, but if it is, it's an amazing one,"
said Lex Lasry, who came to Guantanamo to observe the tribunal on
behalf of the Law Council of Australia, the country's bar association.
The charge sheet detailing Hicks' alleged support for terrorist groups
initially portrayed him as an accomplice of Al Qaeda kingpins. The
prosecutor in his case, Marine Lt. Col. Kevin Chenail, continued
through closing arguments Friday to cast the defendant as a danger to
Western societies.
"Today in this courtroom we are on the front line of the war on
terrorism, face to face with the enemy," Chenail said. He evoked Al
Qaeda attacks against the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen and U.S.
Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania as examples of how Hicks'
terrorist training could be called into service at any time.
If Hicks was such a menace to Western security, as the U.S.
government has alleged since his arrest in December 2001, asked staff
attorney Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union, "why was
he given a sentence more appropriate for a drunk-driving offense?"

"�D UltraMan �D" <***@man.jp> wrote in message news:***@mid.individual.net...
O

American

intelligence agencies.
People have been snatched in broad daylight and then whisked to secret
prisons, possibly for torture. The planes used in this controversial
operation are often seen in Las Vegas, but the connection goes much

deeper.

The I-Team first reported on the so-called "torture taxis" in 2006 and

has

spotted these planes coming in and out of Las Vegas on several

occasions.

The aircraft are owned by shell companies set up by unknown agencies,

quite

possibly the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of the companies were

created

in Nevada, using phony names and non-existent persons. So far, Nevada
officials don't see it as a problem or a concern.
The images are all too familiar -- prisoners being mistreated, others

held

indefinitely without charges. Even more damaging to America's image have
been allegations of torture carried out at secret prisons by American

agents

or surrogates.
In a way, the legal justification for the torture program has roots in
Nevada, since a Nevada lawyer named Jay Bybee, while working for the

Bush

administration, wrote the legal brief defending such policies.
It's not hypothetical. Some of the very same planes that have been used

the kidnapping and transport of suspected terrorists to dark, unknown

places

fly in and out of Las Vegas on a regular basis. The I-Team has recorded
their arrivals. However, we cannot say what they're doing here, but are
pretty sure what they've been used for elsewhere.
Trevor Paglen, of the University of California, said, "It's indisputable

this point that the United States has been kidnapping people around the
world, disappearing them, holding them incommunicado, torturing them.

It's

beyond dispute."
Trevor Paglen is the co-author of Torture Taxi, a book about the

so-called

rendition planes and the torture program. The planes in question are

owned

by private companies with clearance to land at any U.S. military base in

the

world. Track the planes and you can figure out where the secret prisons

are

located, often in countries with dismal human rights records.
Such information has outraged European governments. Example: Khaled
al-Masri, a German national, was vacationing in Macedonia when he was
grabbed by masked men, flown to Afghanistan, and tortured for five

months

until his captors realized they had the wrong guy. Al-Masri is now suing

the

U.S. Government, along with a Reno company, Keeler and Tate, which owns

the

plane suspected of transporting Al-Masri to Kabul.
From all indications, the firm is merely a shell, a false front created

an intelligence agency. The only officer listed is one Tyler Edward

Tate,

person who seemingly does not exist. The lawyer who incorporated the

company

is Steven Petersen, who has declined all requests for comment and whom

the

I-Team discovered, is hard to find, even at his office.
Petersen's office staff didn't know where he was, how to reach him, or

when

he might return. The I-Team can't find any record of Tyler Tate other

than

what's filed with Nevada's Secretary of State. It's a felony to file

false

information with that office, although no one there seems too concerned.

The

office has known for more than a year that Keeler and Tate is most

likely

phony front. But a deputy told the I-Team there's, quote, "nothing they

can

do until a formal complaint is filed by someone."
In other parts of the country -- in North Carolina and Portland, Oregon,

for

example -- the lawyers who have filed papers for other fictitious

airlines

linked to the torture program are being investigated by the state bar.

Not

so in Nevada.
On Scott Petersen's door is another name familiar in Nevada -- Laxalt.

Peter

Laxalt is the brother of former governor and U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt, a
well-connected Washington lobbyist. The lobby directory previously

listed

the Paul Laxalt Group as sharing the same suite with Steven Petersen.

But,

as soon as calls were made about the connection, the Laxalt name was

removed

from the directory.
Trevor Paglen said, "We called the D.C. office. The Laxalt Group denied

even

having an office in Reno. Their name was on the building directly. We

called

the secretary and they told us there was a West Coast office of the

group

that building."
This is not a dead end. European nations have filed formal criminal

charges

against numerous American intelligence agents. Khaled El-Masri's lawsuit

moving forward and he has the American Civil Liberties Union helping

him.

some point, that suit could force some answers about the mysterious

Keeler

and Tate in Reno. And, investigations are underway in two states into

the

lawyers who assisted in setting up the phony companies.
One other point, since the I-Team's first report last year about

tracking

these planes as they fly to Las Vegas, steps have been taken to hide

their

arrivals and departures.

Torpedo

2007-04-02 16:08:19 UTC

Permalink

...from Australian soil ?

Post by PRINCEANDY
This is what Howard and his liberals believe in and support. They stood by
for 5 years as they will in the case of any citizen , even if innocent,
allowing their US friends and local israeli patriots to enjoy the spectacle
of patriotic Australians who do not give israel the support they would like
being used as the playthings of the specially recruited bush armed services,
recruited only if they sign to being able to torture anyone young, old, male
or female.
So george john and israeli patriots have created a legal well paid positions
for paedofiles, rapists, sadists and other sickos who should be in a mental
institution , which would not cost any more thanm employing them to set up
torture chambers.
And if innocent to bad, they will be forced to not speak about the horrors
inflicted on them till after the next election.
So john and his little band of israeli patriots and any supporting
paedofiles, sadists and rapists can again enjoy another stint in
government.