David Hicks - Howard Government Acknowledged Hicks Wasn't Guilty of Any Crime / Proof of US-Australian Collusion

ꕤ Info/Reference SOURCE http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-national/hicks-claims-proof-howard-govt-interfered-20110302-1bdy0.html David Hicks Source http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-national/hicks-claims-proof-howard-govt-interfered-20110302-1bdy0.html Hicks claims proof Howard govt interfered March 2, 2011  AAP Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks says US documents have been released that prove the Howard government interfered in his terrorism case. Mr Hicks, who pleaded guilty to a terrorism-related charge in the US in 2007, says newly released US State Department documents show that members of the Howard government acknowledged he was not guilty of any crime and tried to think of ways to "pin him with something". He says the 50 to 60 pages of documents record "private conversations" between Howard government MPs and US State Department officials. The documents were provided this week to American journalist Jason Leopold by State Department employees. "They're private conversations ... between Australian politicians, the Liberal Party and the US State Department officials, people in the Pentagon and whoever was involved in that process in Guantanamo Bay, and it discusses my treatment and it discusses about the need to pressure me to say `guilty'," Mr Hicks told ABC Radio. Mr Hicks, an Australian citizen, was detained in Afghanistan in 2001, handed over to US authorities and detained for five years at Guantanamo Bay. In March 2007, he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and was sent to Adelaide's Yatala Prison to serve the remainder of a seven-year sentence, before being released in December of that year. On Wednesday, Mr Hicks said he "folded" to pressure to plead guilty and that the new US State Department documents showed Howard government officials acknowledged he had not committed a crime. "There's also acknowledgments from our government, the Australian government, I should be more specific and say the Howard government, acknowledgments from them and even from the US, that I'd never breached any law, I hadn't committed a crime," he said. "And there's conversations between Australian politicians and US politicians of how they can handle that: `What can we do, how can we pin him with something?'." Mr Hicks said that was when "they invented the charge `material support for terrorism'," which, he said, was not a valid crime under any legal system. Mr Hicks says he wants the Australian government to investigate his case, but adds he does not want compensation. "No, what I would really like is for the government to acknowledge that what was done to me was wrong, that my conviction in an illegal military commission is null and void and the plea agreement goes along with that. That's all I'm asking for," he said. Mr Hicks said the content of the US State Department documents would be released by Leopold in about a month's time. © 2016 AAP http://www.smh.com.au//breaking-news-national/hicks-claims-proof-howard-govt-interfered-20110302-1bdy0.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT I'm confused.  I thought the plea bargain was a positive event, as it got Hicks released ... and cleared the path to no election problems for the Howard government.  As in, a:  win/win. But it doesn't look like it is the positive I thought it was, when Hicks maintains he is innocent, he was pressured to plead guilty, he has documents that show the Liberal government of Australia knew he wasn't guilty of any crime, and that the Liberal government and the US colluded to find something to 'pin' on him, while US appears to have made up laws as it went along ... and Hicks spent 5 years in a US prison without charge. That means the Liberal government colluded with the Americans, to deprive an Australian of liberty -- and is party to depriving an Australian of liberty -- even though the Liberal government knew and stated in conversations with the Americans, that Hicks was not guilty of anything? Wow, this is sounding a lot like the Julian Assange (WikiLeaks publisher-journalist) scenario, where the Labor government in Australia was making false public statements about Assange's 'guilt,'  where the Australian authorities have subsequently had to acknowledge that Assange has broken no laws, where Assange (political persecution target) has been detained in Britain without charge for over 5 years now (without Australian government support), and where the US is desperate to make up some twist in the law (in this case, revising laws to redefine elements of journalism as 'espionage', I think it was) to pin something on Assange, while the US government is working towards extradition of Assange to the US ... as Britain, Sweden & Australia aid and abet the Americans. Challenge:  say above in 140 characters ... [CLICK image to enlarge] [CLICK image to enlarge] [CLICK image to enlarge] Therefore, the governments and judiciary of Sweden and Britain collude with one another to commit undemocratic & unlawful political persecution on behalf of their American 'co war criminal' ally, along with both the Labor and Liberal the governments of Australia -- his homeland. How can this be repeating itself? If I were the Hicks guy, I'd want compensation -- and plenty of it. ____________________ On Day Assange Arrested 2010-12-07 Statement by Civil Liberties Australia http://wlcentral.org/node/541 Hey, look who's Australia's High Commissioner to UK, London ...  It's the former Liberal Party Foreign Minister (1996-2007), Alexander Downer: [CLICK image to enlarge] [CLICK image to enlarge] ꕤ