Hangman pictures on jail wall, says Hicks



Tom Allard National Security Editor

February 2, 2007

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hangman-pictures-on-jail-wall-says-hicks/2007/02/01/1169919474225.html



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A PHOTOMONTAGE of Saddam Hussein - including a picture of him dangling from the hangman's noose - is displayed on a wall at Guantanamo Bay with a warning that prisoners could face the same fate, David Hicks says.

It has also been alleged that Mr Hicks and other prisoners were shown articles and photographs of other people executed in Iraq, including a man who was decapitated by his hanging.

The outraged Hicks legal team said the display breached the Geneva Conventions requiring the humane treatment of prisoners, and constituted coercion.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, said a senior official from his department who visited the prison this week had not seen the photos.

A statement issued by Mr Hicks's lawyers quotes Mr Hicks as saying the photographic display of Saddam Hussein was two metres by one metre and visible from the exercise cells where prisoners are allowed for two hours each day.

Mr Hicks's chief defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, said: "Displaying photos of condemned men to those who may be facing capital charges can only [be] interpreted as an attempt to intimidate and compel submission under a threat of death."

He said the display amounted to the mental torture of an already abused prisoner population. In a statement, Mr Hicks's legal team added: "Unfortunately it demonstrates that the lessons of Abu Ghraib and the humane treatment of detainees have not been learned."

Kelvin Thomson, the Opposition's shadow attorney-general, said the display highlighted that Mr Hicks would not get a fair trial.

"Such photos would not be displayed in the remand section of an Australian jail, nor would they be shown to people facing charges in American jails," he said.

"The reason is simple - the authorities would be concerned that confessions or other evidence obtained in such circumstances would be thrown out as having been obtained through coercion."

Mr Hicks is said to be in a deteriorating mental and physical condition, although the Australian Government insists he is well.

The US has refused Australian requests for an independent medical assessment, but a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday the US had relented and the examination could take place after the "military commission process had begun".

When that will actually begin remains uncertain. However, American prosecutors have said they expect to lay charges by the end of this week.