By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 29, 2007

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 28 -- When Australian David Hicks arrived at this island prison as it opened in January 2002, the U.S. government painted him as one of the world's worst terrorists, someone who would do immeasurable harm and needed to face justice. In the five years since, while nearly 400 other detainees have gone home, Hicks has languished in a tiny cell, often wondering, his defense team says, why he has been targeted as one of the chief enemies of the United States.

Hicks's guilty plea on Monday to one count of material support for terrorism was the first step toward concluding his case, one that ultimately amounted to charges that he trained with al-Qaeda and worked with the Taliban after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the U.S. government dropped allegations that he fired a single shot in the direction of U.S. or allied forces, and a pretrial agreement could limit the amount of prison time he serves to a few years.

This case so far has been less about who Hicks is or what he did than about starting the Bush administration's military commissions resolving an international issue with a close ally. Commission officials have praised the case as showing a transparent and fair system; human rights groups have painted the commissions as a sham with still-unwritten rules.

Lost in the process, in part, is Hicks. His attorneys describe Hicks, who is charged with war crimes allegedly committed in late 2001, as a man who has been terribly affected by years in this detention facility with little human interaction. In recent months he has lived in the highest-security area, growing his hair long so he can cover his eyes to keep out the light while he sleeps and reading up on fishing and organic gardening.

The 31-year-old from Adelaide, Australia, has been described by his attorneys as a lost soul who at one point worked as a kangaroo skinner in a meatpacking plant. U.S. officials allege he moved toward extremism in the late 1990s when he went to Albania to fight for the Kosovo Liberation Army. Between 1999 and 2001 he allegedly converted to Islam, moved to Afghanistan and trained at various al-Qaeda camps. He later allegedly helped the Taliban by guarding a tank in Kandahar and moving briefly to the front lines of the war against U.S. forces and the Northern Alliance. Hicks was caught while fleeing by taxi to the Pakistani border.

When prosecutors read his aliases in court here, such as Abu Muslim Australia, Hicks chuckled. Just over 5 feet tall, he stood shoulder-high to his defense attorney and spoke in a deep tone.

His defense team and his family members say he pleaded guilty to avoid a flawed military commission and to ensure that he can leave the Guantanamo Bay prison with a definitive sentence.

"He just wants to get back and try to get a normal life," said Hicks's father, Terry, during a break in the proceedings Monday. Speaking to Australian ABC-TV in Washington on Tuesday, Terry Hicks said his son was part of a political game: "As far as I'm concerned, this was a way out for David regardless of whether he was guilty or innocent, and we'll never ever know now."

George Edwards, an international human rights lawyer and adviser to Hicks's defense team, said Hicks is not the terrorist the U.S. government has made him out to be.

"He's a pawn in a big political game, and he's being used by the Australian government to bolster their chances of staying in power," Edwards said. "If he gets home by November, that will be a feather in the cap of Prime Minister John Howard. It's a rush to injustice."

The military commission this week has drawn considerable interest from the Australian media, with the nation's major outlets making up half of the news contingent here. Correspondents have been doing live television shots for an Australian audience 14 hours ahead of East Coast time, and one wrote a feature about the souvenirs one can buy at Navy Exchange stores here -- such as stuffed-animal iguanas and magnets that say "Kisses from Guantanamo Bay."

Mark Coultan, a Sydney Morning News correspondent covering Hicks's case, said that in Australia the story is not just about terrorism but also politics. Public opinion there has shifted dramatically because of a feeling that Hicks has been unfairly treated, he said.

"It's become a proxy about dissatisfaction over the war on terror and a feeling that his interests have been sacrificed for Australian foreign policy interests," Coultan said, referencing opinion polls in Australia that indicate that the public believes Howard has been pandering to U.S. desires. Howard is up for reelection this year.

The Australian public's shifting sentiment in part reflects efforts by the defense team to depict Hicks as a benign adventurer who stumbled into world events. Joshua Dratel, one of his civilian attorneys, portrayed Hicks as a wayward young man who wanted to join the Australian army but couldn't meet educational requirements because he dropped out of school before the 10th grade.

Marine Maj. Michael "Dan" Mori, Hicks's military attorney, has been instrumental in that quest, traveling to Australia and making comments that have irked officials in Washington. He and Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor, have sparred over Mori's contention that the commissions are unfair.

The public spat between Mori and Davis spurred Susan J. Crawford, who oversees the military commissions, to urge all lawyers involved in the process to treat it with "the same sense of order and civility that characterizes court-martial practice." In a March 2 memo titled "Civility," Crawford wrote that she expects all sides to zealously represent their clients' best interests but also to keep decorum, "particularly when making public appearances or extra-judicial statements."

Mori's team filed a motion last week seeking to dismiss Davis from the case, alleging that the prosecutor is guilty of misconduct. Davis filed a response on Monday. "I did nothing improper," he told reporters at Guantanamo Bay.

Prosecutors have backed away from calling Hicks a hard-core terrorist, instead likening him to those who have been convicted in the United States of aiding terrorism, such as John Walker Lindh. Davis said he probably will not argue for more than a 20-year sentence, but it is unclear what, if any, sentence is part of a pretrial agreement. Both sides are now choosing which facts involved in the terrorism charge will be presented to the military commission panel that will decide his fate.

By contrast, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, has not been charged with a crime, though he has been in U.S. custody for years and has taken responsibility for numerous attacks on U.S. interests. David H.B. McLeod, an Australian lawyer on Hicks's defense team, said Hicks should not be the example of what Americans need to fear.

"If he's the worst of the worst and the person who should be brought before the commissions first, the world doesn't have much to worry about," McLeod said.