Fed: Labor calls on A-G to say Hicks trial process will be fair

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2005
Fed: Labor calls on A-G to say Hicks trial process will be fair

CANBERRA, Aug 1 AAP - Labor today challenged Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to declare
whether he still believes David Hicks will receive a fair trial following claims the military
commission system was rigged.

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said Labor had repeatedly expressed
serious concerns about the US military commission process and emails, leaked by former
prosecution officials, confirmed the worst.

"The attorney-general must say whether he stands by his repeated assertions that David
Hicks will receive a fair trial, in light of emails saying the exact opposite from insiders
in the Military Commission process," she said in a statement.

"When he visited Washington two weeks ago was Mr Ruddock briefed on these emails?"

David Hicks was detained in Afghanistan in 2001 while fighting with the Taliban regime.

He has since been detained at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay and will eventually face
trial before a military commission on terror-related charges.

The ABC today reported that emails, from two former prosecutors to their superiors,
outlined grave concerns about the fairness of the military commission process.

It was described as a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively
inexperienced lawyers to prosecute low-level defendants in a process that appears to be
rigged.

Ms Roxon said Mr Ruddock had stated that the government had investigated the process
and was certain it would be fair.

She asked what steps Mr Ruddock had taken to satisfy himself the process was fair and
had he or anyone else ever sought the views of prosecution staff such as the email authors
Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr.

"He has shown that Australian citizens cannot trust their attorney-general to stand
up for their rights to a fair trial," she said.

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KEYWORD: HICKS ROXON

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