[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
The issue for me is torture. I don’t know if Hicks was or wasn’t, but the gag order doesn’t exactly raise hopes.[/quote]
The newspapers in Australia today are reporting the the gag order will not be valid in Australia because we dont have any laws preventing Hicks from talking to the media.
THE gag on David Hicks speaking to the media for 12 months would not be enforceable in Australia, the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, admitted last night.
Mr Ruddock said Australia had no law making it a crime for Hicks to talk, and the United States would be able to act on a breach only if Hicks came “within their reach”.
However, in an interview with the Herald earlier yesterday, Mr Ruddock had said the order preventing Hicks, his family, friends and associates from telling his story was reasonable and enforceable. “What that’s suggesting is that the agreement can’t be avoided by telling [the story] to a family member and then they say it on his behalf,” he said.
Mr Ruddock said the extraordinary condition had nothing to do with the Federal Government. “It’s their agreement,” he said. “I didn’t seek it. The Australian Government didn’t seek it.”
Mr Ruddock said he expected the order to be enforced in Australia because it was agreed by the parties in the plea bargain and that agreement was the basis for Hicks being sent home.
But later, speaking on the ABC’s Lateline he said that for Australia to agree to an extradition, a charge similar to the one laid overseas must exist under Australian law. “In Australia, we have a position about freedom of speech.”
Asked if the gag order meant nothing, and Hicks would be able to speak to the media, Mr Ruddock responded: “I suspect you are probably right”.
Mr Ruddock said the US included the clause in the plea bargain and it was a matter for the US, Hicks, his prosecutors and his counsel. “I don’t think it’s a matter for us to enforce,” he said.
The Australian authorities could act if Hicks tried to profit directly or indirectly by selling his story, under proceeds of crime legislation.
Hicks’s military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, had suggested that if Hicks breached any of the conditions in the plea bargain - such as by speaking to the media - he could be returned to Guantanamo Bay to serve the entire seven-year sentence, which is to be suspended after the nine months.
Major Mori told the ABC: “He could potentially be brought back to Guantanamo to serve it. I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope the media respects that he’s under oath, under obligation not to talk to media, and they don’t try to set him up for failure.”
But Major Mori said the condition of silence might be a blessing. “I do think that David needs a period of time to get back to Australia, to decompress from this whole situation, get back in touch with his family, get back into his education, finish his high school qualifications, without the media harassing him,” he told the ABC’s 7.30 Report.
Hicks’s father, Terry, has expressed his outrage that the gag order extends to him, and constitutional law experts have said that it breaches Australia’s fundamental guarantees of free political discussion