Friday Feb 2 2007
A poster and news articles describing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's trial and execution have been removed from the view of Guantanamo Bay inmates after US officials agreed the material could be "insensitive".
The move was a small victory for Australian inmate David Hicks and his legal team.
Hicks's lawyers, who spent the past five days at the US military base with their client, created headlines around the world on Thursday when they revealed the poster was hanging in a prison recreation area.
They also alleged Hicks was shown a photo of a dead Saddam hanging from a noose after the dictator's December 30 execution.
"This was a case of mental torture," Hicks's lead American defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, told AAP after returning from the Cuba base.
"Of course they took the poster down.
"They wouldn't want anyone to take a photograph of it."
Commander Robert Durand, the director of public affairs at the Guantanamo military base, denied Hicks was shown a photo of the dead Saddam.
He also defended the poster and dissemination to prisoners of news articles about Saddam's trial and execution.
Durand said the material was "neither graphic nor sensational" and provided "intellectual stimulation" for prisoners.
"The poster was essentially like a news poster in Arabic," Durand said.
"It had images of Saddam Hussein and said 'The people of Iraq have spoken' and it gave a timeline of his capture, charging and conviction."
The news articles describing Saddam's execution were sourced from mainstream news websites, Durand said.
"We think that having access to outside news, having access to books in the library, magazines and mental stimulation is a good thing," Durand said.
Dratel, however, said the US military had prevented him and other lawyers from showing Hicks news stories.
Dratel also questioned why the message on the poster was written in Arabic. The lawyer compared the Guantanamo prison to the infamous Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq where prisoners were tortured.
"It's clearly not the guards at the prison who put up the banner," Dratel said.
"They don't know Arabic.
"This is another Abu Ghraib. This is intelligence officers running the prison using intimidation and mental torture."
Dratel also asked how Hicks would have been able to describe the photo of Saddam if he had not seen it.
"They showed David a photo of him hanging from a rope," Dratel said.
"They (the US military) haven't told the truth in five years.
"Why would they start telling it now?"
Hicks has been held without trial in Guantanamo Bay for five years after being picked up in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Dratel, who has been visiting Hicks for more than three years at Guantanamo, said the 31-year-old's mental and physical condition had deteriorated in the past two months.
"It is the worst condition I have seen him in," the lawyer said.
"Not just in terms of what he expressed to us, but other things indicated the past two months have really taken a toll on him mentally and emotionally."
Physically, Hicks looked like a different person, Dratel said, and possessions such as a comb had been taken from him.
Durand defended the treatment of Hicks and other inmates.
He said the Australian government could request an independent psychological assessment of Hicks's condition.
"As far as an independent assessment of his condition, that would be something that would have to be either requested government to government, Australian State Department to US State Department," Durand said.
A behavioural health unit at Guantanamo "has psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health technicians" while detainees also have access to counselling and prescription medication.
"The access to care and quality of care is certainly as good as any American service member has," Durand said.
New charges are expected to be laid against Hicks this month and he is likely to be among the first inmates at Guantanamo Bay to face a military commission trial.
©AAP 2007
- David Hicks Case Information
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