“After five years of solitary confinement in a small metal cell, David Hicks pleaded guilty on March 26 to one of the two charges brought against him by US military prosecutors on March 1, to finally get out of the notoriously brutal US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Hicks’s case has revealed just what a sham the US-led ‘war on terror’ really is.
“For five years Washington, backed to the hilt by Canberra, has claimed that Hicks was one of the most dangerous ‘terrorists’ being held at Guantanamo. He was charged with offences that carrying life sentences. Now, under the plea bargaining deal, his US military prosecutors are talking about him being able to be ‘home before the end the year’. Indeed, on March 31, Hicks was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, with all but nine months of the sentence suspended. He will serve most of this in an Australian civilian prison.”