By Jill Fraser
MELBOURNE
Hours after Australian David Hicks won a legal challenge that overturned his terrorism conviction, his lawyer has blasted the country's ex-prime minister for suggesting that he had won on a legal technicality.
Stephen Kenny told The Anadolu Agency on Thursday that John Howard’s comments were solely made to justify his government’s actions.
"That comment is a distraction from the real issue, which is how Howard supported Guantanamo Bay and an Australian citizen being taken beyond the law."
Howard has long been criticized for not doing enough to represent Hicks, who was held at the United States’ notorious detention camp during his government’s tenure from March 1996 to December 2007.
In a statement Thursday -- following a U.S. Court of Military Commission Review which set aside Hicks’s terrorism conviction -- Howard said the decision was essentially a technicality.
"The U.S. verdict is about the legal process in that country," it read.
Howard said that Hicks had "reveled in jihad," while present Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters on hearing of the quashing that "He was up to no good on his own admission."
Not so, Kenny told AA.
"The reality is that when David was in Afghanistan he committed no crime," he said, adding that he had "never 'reveled in jihad'."
"Although we may not have supported the government in Afghanistan at that time, they were in charge of the country and the decision of the court has shown very clearly that he did nothing illegal and he did not deserve to be treated the way he was."
He underlined: "The real issue is how he was treated after his capture."
Hicks was caught by coalition troops in Afghanistan in 2002 and pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism in exchange for his release from U.S. detention in 2007.
On Wednesday, a U.S. military court overturned that conviction on the grounds that the charge was not viable.
The decision formally confirms my client’s innocence, "which is what we knew all along," Kenny told AA.
He said that by supporting Guantanamo Bay rules and the system set up by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002, Howard had "trashed the Geneva Convention" -- which sets a very dangerous precedent.
"If Australian nationals are captured by an enemy our hope is that they will be treated according to the Geneva Convention... But enemies of Australia can now say, you supported the Guantanamo Bay rules, where complete control of detainees was in the power of the U.S. president."
Earlier Thursday, Hicks hit out at critics in what News Corp described as a "fiery" press conference.
"I think they’re supporters of torture," it reported Hicks as saying of those who still believed in his guilt.
"The only thing that matters is what the U.S. government has said."
Asked what he was doing when he was picked up in Afghanistan, Hicks replied: "Having a holiday." To which a reporter said: "Well, that’s not true is it?"
Hicks said he was not seeking compensation or an official apology and thanked the Australian public for the support he had received.
I'm "looking forward to getting on with my life now that my name has been cleared," he added.
While Hicks said that he was not going to seek compensation, he underlined that "someone" should be responsible for his medical expenses, including dental work and back, knee and elbow operations.
"It is becoming an expensive exercise to fix myself from torture," he said.
"Being kept in freezing conditions, small rooms for years, not being able to move or exercise... The body deteriorates over five-and-a-half years even without the added torture, such as stress positions, being beaten, etc."
