Australia has betrayed Hicks, says Fraser

AAP
Jan. 02, 2007

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser says he never thought he would see the time Australia departed from providing justice to all citizens like it has with David Hicks.

Hicks has been detained by the US at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention centre since January 2002, a month after his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

The 31-year-old Adelaide man has recently refused visits from Australian consular officials.

Asked what he saw as different today to when he was in government 30 years ago, Mr Fraser said western democracies, including Australia, had "depart(ed) from the rule of law and due process and justice to all citizens as we have".

Mr Fraser said Hicks in particular has been betrayed by the Australian government.

"Nobody knows if David Hicks is guilty or innocent, although the prime minister has said he has not offended Australian law, which should give an indication the way (in which) he has been totally deserted by the Australian government," Mr Fraser told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

Hicks pleaded not guilty in August 2004 to charges of attempted murder, conspiracy and aiding the enemy.

But those charges were struck out by the US Supreme Court in June this year when the court ruled the military commissions were unlawful.

The US government has rewritten the commission rules, and the Australian government has said Hicks is likely to be charged again early this year.

"The way lies after lies after lies have been said about how he's going to be tried ... there is no respectable legal authority that I know of that has suggested those military tribunals are going to be anything more than a victor's tribunal," Mr Fraser said.

"The British started to outlaw evidence taken by torture 500 years ago and now we accept it and we accept it in Hick's case."