Gitmo Detainee Remains In Limbo

5 Years After His Capture, David Hicks Is Still Waiting For His Day In Court

(AP) 
Hicks became the first prisoner represented when the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights took up his cause in 2002, challenging his detention in U.S courts, a right the Supreme Court ultimately upheld.

"Guantanamo is to me what the Japanese concentration camps were during the Second World War," says CCR President Michael Ratner.

In Cuba, about 80 protesters demonstrated outside a gate leading to the naval base today.

"The idea that you can indefinitely detain people, give them no access to their families or initially lawyers, never charge them and torture them in an offshore penal colony, should be absolute anathema to any civilized country in the world," Ratner says.

The Bush administration repeatedly described the Guantanamo detainees as the "worst of the worst," but some available evidence suggests otherwise. Only 8 percent were ever classified as al Qaeda fighters, and less than 25 percent were deemed to have any intelligence value, according to Pentagon documents studied by Seton Hall Law School. The studies led by Mark and Joshua Denbeuax found the military rated detainees properly held "enemy combatants" in almost every case, but that was without ever calling any witnesses — and 89 percent of the time, without producing any evidence.

Only 5 percent of Guantanamo detainees were even captured by American forces in Afghanistan, the Seton Hall team found. Northern Alliance fighters claim to have picked up Hicks. Most Guantanamo detainees were turned over by Afghanis or Pakistanis for cash rewards.

Here’s what one of the colorful leaflets urging their help said: "Dear countrymen: The al Qaeda terrorists are our enemy. They are the enemy of your independence and freedom. Come on. Let us find their most secret hiding places. Search them out and inform the intelligence service of the province and get the big prize."

A laborer and one-time rodeo competitor from Adelaide, Australia, Hicks lived in Japan and worked on horse farms before traveling in 1999 to Albania to fight with the Kosovo Liberation Army against the Serbs — the same side of the Balkan war the U.S. had intervened on. Standing just 5-feet, 2 inches tall, Hicks was rejected from the Australian Army because he never finished high school. He converted to Islam, but no longer practices the religion.

"He had experience in Kosovo; he had experience in Kashmir; he's been to a number of combat and terrorism training courses put on by al Qaeda, and from my understanding when 9/11 happened he was out of the country, but once he saw the U.S. had been attacked, he made a conscious choice to try and get back to Afghanistan," Col. Morris Davis, the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, told Australian radio today. "We really and truly want to get this case to trial as soon as possible."

[laorendavid]

Guantanemo - What an embarrassment & stigma to our country's honor. I guess there's a reason that "Gitmo" in Chinese (%u6781%u7279%u6469)means "Particularly Evil Spirit."

[nishaboston]

What I do not understand is the US is always critizing Cuba yet we rent land (Gitmo Bay) from them to hold prisoners that have not been charge with anything....That makes no sense and if you support this hypocritsy then you have serious issues.

[klmetz_cbs]

Aw, poor baby. Went to fight a war on his own and got caught. Hold him till the war is over, then turn him loose.
Or, turn him loose now - right where they caught him.
Next time, SHOOT him, don't take him prisoner.
In any case, there are only two safe options for the rest of us: 1. Hold him prisoner... 2. try, convict, execute.
We do ourselves no favor by turning creeps like this loose.

[inventagod]

Will you be next?

Halliburton is building many new 'camps' at this moment....

Google: Halliburton camps

[random_radar]

The fact that our government is composed of people who do these kinds of things frightens me. What is being done in Gitmo today will be done to us tomorrow. Call it a practice session for how the public will be managed in the future.

[kpokey]

How can anyone calling him/herself an American not be mad as hell when someone doesn't get a timely trial? I guess you would have to be completely ignorant of what America is and how it was founded and what rules it was founded upon. That's the only explaination for any American not being outraged by people not getting a timely trial, no matter what the charges are against the person.

[grumpas]

bluestardad: You assume he was fighting against our troops! When all you have is the word of a government who is out of control! Who is capable of telling lies to further there own agenda! Either you believe in the Constitution or you don't! He still has a right to a fair trial to hear what evidence his accusers have against him! I personally don't believe half the people in Gitmo are there for the reason's our government claims they are! I think most of them are victims of circumstance. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is why they aren't being charged! There isn't much against them to try them with!

[gunnerv1]

Why was he where is was in the first place when he got cought, sorry, I don't feel sorry for the little vermin.

[mygramma]

Gitmo represents one of the darkest episodes of American history. We allow scuz balls like Bush and his cronies to trash the fundamental principles of equity and rule of law that have inspired the world -- until now. Shame on us. Shame!

What we did to the Japanese Americans in our concentration camps at places like Jerome and Rohwer Arkansas for the inhumanity, blind fear and racism the internments represent was bad enough. But Gitmo is worse. We can no longer hold our constitution up for the world to see as a beacon of freedom and fairness since we don't live by it.

[orthotox]

What a betrayal of the best that is America -by Bush. Kudos to CBS for the story. This is pre-9-11 professional standard journalism.

[antoniof123]

Weak case when will this country stop being afraid of its shadow. This is true injustice I hope that none of you are put in this situation no trial which is against the law. Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves if they were alive today what would they say. For that matter what are so many of us here saying but the fools run the world that is why there is so much killing and fear the innocent suffer at there worthless expense.

[bluestardad]

If he fights against our troops his asscanrot in the Jail!

[feelfree1]

I wonder how many more people will be tortured, maimed, and murdered, by the the Bush regime and their enablers, before they are stopped?

[Jasonian18]

and as far as this guy being muslim or not if he is willing to train al quaeda then he is just as bad as radical muslims but how much info could he have?

[Jasonian18]

well sounds about right as long as we are sure with multiple sources then imprison and interrogate as needed but excess and necesary is hard to determine with radical muslims