Guantanamo Plea Leaves Questions

In this photograph of a drawing by AP sketch artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by U.S. Military officials, detainee David Hicks, center left, sits with his defense council in the U.S. military courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday, March 26, 2007. Held at Guantanamo since 2002, Hicks is accused of attending al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and briefly fighting alongside the Taliban following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (AP Photo/Janet Hamlin, Pool) (Janet Hamlin - AP)

-- David Hicks' guilty plea may send him home to Australia to serve his terrorism sentence, but it also short-circuits a full test of the new U.S. military tribunal system, which will have to handle more complicated cases in the future.

Not even the prosecution said Hicks' guilty plea Monday night was a victory for the revised Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, set up after the Supreme Court last summer ruled the Pentagon's previous system was unconstitutional.

The 31-year-old Australian was the first detainee to face trial under the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed into law in October. But by pleading guilty at his arraignment to providing material support to terrorism, he deprived the tribunal system of a true road test: a trial.

Unless the Supreme Court steps in again and throws out the new tribunal system, officials plan to prosecute as many as 80 prisoners at the isolated base in southeast Cuba. Probably next in line are Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 when he was captured after a firefight during which he allegedly killed a U.S. Army soldier with a grenade, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden. Unlike Hicks, admitted jihadists are among the 80 who could face the death penalty if convicted.

Lawyers for Hicks and the prosecution were meeting Tuesday to discuss the details of his plea before it is presented to the military judge who must approve it. If the plea is accepted, he could be sentenced this week and would then be sent to Australia, where the United States has agreed to let him serve his sentence.

Hicks, a Muslim convert, allegedly attended al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, conducting surveillance on the British and American embassies as part of his training. But even by the military's account he was a small fish, a hapless holy warrior who had spent only two hours on the Taliban front line before it collapsed in November 2001 under attack by U.S. Special Forces and the Northern Alliance.

While fleeing, Hicks came across a group of Arab fighters who told him they were heading back to the front to fight to the death. Hicks declined to join them and was captured in December 2001 as he tried to escape into Pakistan, according to the military's charge sheet.

Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, said Tuesday he believed his son had pleaded guilty as part of a bargain with prosecutors that would get him out of the Guantanamo prison. "It's a way to get home, and he's told us he just wants to get home," Terry Hicks told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

While the guilty plea may have prevented a trial, Monday's hearing did foreshadow what's in store during upcoming trials. The scene in the small courtroom was at times tumultuous.

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, ordered two lawyers to leave the defense table after ruling they were not authorized to represent Hicks. One of the attorneys, Joshua Dratel, refused to sign an agreement to abide by tribunal rules, even those not yet established.

"These are the same problems that plagued the earlier commissions, that the process is ad hoc," Dratel told the black-robed judge before leaving the defense table.

Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch, an observer at the hearing, said the tribunal has failed to establish basic rules for defense lawyers.