The David Hicks enigma !

Many people both here and in America will be astonished at the sentence finally handed down on David Hicks, the Australian captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan over five years ago.
Hicks has been incarcerated in Gitmo for the past five years without charges being laid or being presented to a court. This conflicts with both the American and the Australian notions of justice, but detainees in the war against the cohorts of Osama bin Laden are deemed outside normal procedures and exempt from legal rules.
Finally, Hicks was hauled before a military court - whose legality is the subject of question - and in a plea bargain agreed to a guilty plea to a charge of " material support of terrorism ".
He was sentenced to a gaol period of nine months - which will be served in an Australian gaol - and will walk free on new year's eve.
This contrasts with the experience of American John Walker Lindh who was captured in precisely the same circumstances. Lindh also accepted plea bargaining - and received a gaol term of twenty years.
Many will question the disparity between the two sentences as a favour from the American top brass to their good friend John Howard who was under increasing pressure from the Australian public over the Hicks affair. Howard was accused of abandoning Hicks to an unfair legal system and refusing to demand his repatriation to Australia to face whatever charges were possible in an Australian court.
That perception will only intensify by the other conditions that accompanied the plea bargaining sentence.
Hicks is forbidden to talk to the media for a period of one year. After that, should he talk to the media he will legally forfeit any money coming to him from any source associated with the charges. In addition, he must agree that he was not mistreated during his incarceration in Gitmo - and agree to not pursue any court action or sue the American government for any reason.
It seems strangely coincidental that the gagging of Hicks runs in parallel with a Federal election in this country later this year. The fact that Hicks will quickly be repatriated will reduce public concern and there is a good chance that the matter will have gone off the boil when electioneering gets under way in a few months time.
The only problem remaining is that justice - as we know it - was not done. A man accused of a crime was denied habeas corpus and spent five years behind bars without a charge being levelled or a day in court. The light sentence handed down does nothing to dispel the notion that justice delayed is justice denied - and that in effect Hicks served a five year sentence before the final outcome !