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)

"The antics at the Hicks hearing underline the illegitimacy of the Guantanamo tribunals," Daskal said.

Marine Lt. Col. Colby C. Vokey, who represents Khadr, said Hicks pleaded guilty "to escape the oppression of Guantanamo Bay and the fundamentally unfair military commissions system."

"He'll plead guilty and is willing to serve a sentence for his plea, as long as that means prison in his own country," Vokey told The Associated Press.

Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor for the tribunals, said he was satisfied Monday's hearing ended in a guilty plea but added: "I don't look at it as a victory. I look at it as a first step."

Davis added that it was important to him that the tribunal system be fair.

Attorneys for Guantanamo prisoners insist the new system is still unfair, and have asked the Supreme Court to intervene again and guarantee prisoners have the right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts, a principal known as habeas corpus that is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

"Hick's guilty plea should not be seen as legitimizing in any way an utterly illegal system of offshore penal colonies, abuse and 'trials' that violate fundamental due process rights," the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents hundreds of Guantanamo detainees, said in a statement Tuesday.

Australian attorney David McLeod, who met with Hicks a day before the hearing, said his client did not expect a fair trial, was depressed and had been considering the plea deal to end his five-year imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

His guilty plea was seen by attorneys as Hicks' only recourse to get out of Guantanamo.

"As one of my other clients said, he would rather plead guilty and be sent to jahanam _ hell _ than stay in Guantanamo," said Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for several other Guantanamo detainees.

The Australian government won't comment on the sentence or plea bargain. But Don Rothwell, a professor of international law at Australian National University, said Hicks would be obligated to serve out the entirety of his sentence back home under Australia's treaty agreements with the United States.

"Australia cannot in any way seek to interfere with the original sentence unless there have been set parole agreements between the parties," he told the AP.

But if the U.S. Supreme Court again rules the military tribunals unconstitutional, Hicks might have grounds to seek to vacate his sentence, Rothwell said.

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Associated Press Writer Meraiah Foley in Sydney, Australia, contributed to this report.