In the first resolution of a Guantánamo Bay detention case under the new Military Commissions Act, Australian David Hicks pled guilty Monday to providing material support to a terrorist organization. Hicks will serve nine months of a seven-year sentence, mostly in his native country. On its face, the Hicks plea deal marked the first sign of progress in the Guantánamo system, an institution known throughout the world as a legal black hole since its establishment in 2002.
But for those troubled by the torture and mistreatment of detainees over the years, the deal raised serious concerns that the Bush Administration is seeking to re-write Guantánamo’s torture-laden history. Under its terms, Hicks, who repeatedly complained of torture as a detainee, stated that he has “never been illegally treated” while in US custody and promised not to pursue a lawsuit over abuse. He also promised not to speak with the media for a year.
“It certainly appears that the United States demanded David Hicks’s silence in exchange for his freedom,” says Zachary Katznelson, senior counsel at Reprieve, a UK-based human rights group that represents several Guantánamo detainees. “You can hardly look at the twelve-month gag order and prohibition from alleging abuse and not think that the United States military has something to hide.”
Prior to the plea deal, Hicks’s allegations of torture were quite definite. In an affidavit signed just weeks beforehand, he stated that while in US custody he was kicked, spat on, hit with a rifle butt and injected with drugs. Those allegations, however, are now null and void—vanished in the murky plea bargaining of Guantánamo Bay.