Just say, you did something that was a bit dubious but wasn't actually breaking any law. You get arrested by a gov. You think there's nothing to worry about as this gov obeys the rule of law and won't be able to hold you for breaking any law. You are wrong. They hold you for years without charge calling you "the worst of the worst". Finally that gov makes up a law years after your arrest and charges you with breaking that law, making it retrospective to when you were arrested. You're found guilty in a plea bargain organised between your home gov and the gov convicting you. You're flown home as part of the deal and finish your jail sentence in your home country.
This is what happened to David Hicks.
He was captured, sent to Gitmo for years, before the protests by Australians about the injustice became so loud that finally the Howard gov (facing electoral annihilation in the coming federal poll) made a deal with the US gov to get Hicks out of Gitmo; the plea bargain.
Now, years later, Hicks has succeeded in a bid to clear his name.
THE charge with which David Hicks was convicted at Guantanamo Bay in 2007 has been ruled invalid by a US appeals court because it could not be applied retrospectively, meaning Hicks can claim to be an innocent man.
Overnight in Washington DC, the United States Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, who, along with Mr Hicks was the first detainee to be put before the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
Like Mr Hicks, he was found guilty of the charge of providing material support for terrorism.
The court found Mr Hamdan's conviction could not stand because, under the international law of war in effect at the time of his actions, there was no such defined war crime.
The charge was created in 2006.
In 2007, the Howard government was keen to end the political embarrassment caused by Mr Hicks's ongoing incarceration and Mr Hicks was keen to get home. He had been at Guantanamo Bay since being captured in Afghanistan in December, 2001.
In a plea bargain which, it is believed was negotiated with the knowledge of officials of both governments, he pleaded guilty to the charge and, on March 31, 2007, was given a seven-year jail sentence, which was suspended for all but nine months.
In May, he was flown back to Australia, sent to jail in Adelaide and released four days after Christmas. Read moreI really don't know why it's taken so bloody long for some kind of justice to be done. What happened to Hicks is a warning to all free countries just how easily that freedom can be lost. I would say it's a warning Julian Assange has been noting for some time.
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