South Australian Citizens in the News Today #1

Letter in today's SMH Letters regarding David Hicks.

To all the letter writers supporting the traitor David Hicks, spare a thought for our World War II prisoners of war. They were forced into slave labour, had appalling food and had no access to proper medical treatment. Trial? There were no trials; they had to wait until the war ended to be repatriated.

Yes, bring David Hicks back to Australia, but make sure he is charged with treason and then sentenced to life imprisonment.

Anthony Dusting Shailer Park (Qld)

got this reply from me

Anthony Dusting (letters 23 January), if you weren't being sarcastic, can you please supply us and the Government with the legal advice that you have to show that David Hicks has any charges to answer for here in Australia? The whole point is that nothing that he is alleged to have done is in contravention of any laws anywhere in the world.


which probably wont be published due to the stating of the bloody obvious.

But for those of you interested, the SECURITY LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (TERRORISM) ACT 2002 - SCHEDULE 1 - Amendments came into force AFTER hicks was already incarcerated, and the pertinent bits, namely:

(1) A person commits an offence, called treason, if the person:
f) engages in conduct that assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist:

(i) another country; or

(ii) an organisation;

that is engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force

may well be moot in that The Australian SAS was not at that point involved in "armed hostilities" - it was there purely as an advance recon force.