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GUANTANAMO BAY - Australian prisoner David Hicks has pleaded guilty before a US military tribunal to a charge of providing material support to terrorists after deferring the entering a plea earlier on.
The 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner was accused of fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the US-led invasion in 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo for more than five years.
He announced his plea in a hearing in the US war crimes tribunal at the base.
Hicks answered "yes, sir," when the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, asked if that was in fact his plea.
Hicks had faced life imprisonment if convicted. The judge ordered the prosecutors and defence lawyers to draw up a plea agreement by 4pm EDT (9am Wednesday NZ time) today, which was expected to spell out what sentence he would serve.
Under a long-standing diplomatic agreement, Hicks will serve his sentence in Australia.
Hicks is accused of fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the US-led invasion in 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo for more than five years.
Hicks, who faces life in prison if convicted, said he would wait until a later hearing to enter a plea.
Hicks, a convert to Islam, wore a khaki prison uniform and was unshackled as military guards escorted him into the flag-draped courtroom. He has grown his hair to chest-length and seemed considerably chubbier than at his last hearing in 2004.
He addressed the judge as "sir" and joked that he speaks English but still might need a translator.
"It's my Australian English, sir. It's different," Hicks told the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann.
Two of Hicks' three lawyers left the defence table after the judge said they had not followed proper procedures to officially serve on the defence team. One, a civilian, had refused to sign an agreement to follow rules that have yet to be finalized. The other, a military reserve lawyer, had not been ordered to active duty to defend Hicks.
"I'm shocked because I just lost another lawyer," Hicks said.
The US military flew Hicks' father and sister to the base and allowed them to meet privately with him in the court building before the hearing started.
Hicks is convinced he will not get a fair trial, said one of his Australian attorneys, David McLeod.
The United States has agreed to send him to Australia to serve any sentence.
Hicks has said he was sodomised, beaten, and subject to forced injections while in US custody, allegations the US military calls untrue and nonsense.
McLeod and the chief prosecutor for the tribunals, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, said there had been discussions about a potential plea agreement under which Hicks would plead guilty in return for a reduced sentence.
Neither would say what terms had been offered and McLeod said Hicks would continue fighting the charge for now.
The US military accuses Hicks of supporting terrorism by attending al Qaeda training camps, conducting surveillance on the US Embassy in Kabul and fighting US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. He was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and sent to Guantanamo a month later.
McLeod questioned why Australia, a staunch US ally, had not done more to get Hicks out of "the Western world's most notorious prison" and why it allowed Hicks to face a trial system designed only for non-Americans.
Hicks' lawyers and human rights monitors observing the hearings say the trials are rigged to ensure convictions and allow information obtained through coercion.
Hicks is not accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks and Human Rights Watch said he could easily be tried in a regular US court.
Davis said the rules are fair and compare favourably to those of international tribunals.
In Washington on Monday, the Pentagon said authorities had transferred a man suspected of involvement in attacks in East Africa to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Abdul Malik, who had admitted involvement in a 2002 attack on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, was the first detainee to be sent to Guantanamo since September 2006, when 14 al Qaeda suspects considered by the Pentagon to be "high-value" detainees arrived from secret CIA prisons overseas.
- REUTERS
