by Richard Tonkin

Before his military tribunal hearing David Hicks was allowed to spend the morning with his father and sister, and share a meal with them. Presumably while still shackled to the floor, he was allowed to hug them. After five years of Guantanamo, can you imagine what being able to do this would feel like? I can imagine it being like coming out of a sensory deprivation tank.

Following this, Hicks was forced to watch his legal team dwindle before his eyes as his two civilian lawyers were dismissed from the hearing. Hicks was then reportedly given the choice of whether these now-powerless friends should remain in the room. From then on, either way, there was only Hick's US military lawyer to defend him. According to Terry, David exclaimed, "If this keeps going, I won't have any lawyers". Major Mori was left alone to do the work of three. Hicks declined entering a plea at this hearing. As the Australian Council for Civil Liberties' spokesman, barrister David Burnie, says: "It would have been a very strong lesson to Mr Hicks today that he wasn't going to get a fair hearing before this commission."

It was at this point, I believe, that Hicks gave up and gave everyone what they wanted by admitting to one of the two charges presented to him, admitting to "providing material support for terrorism."

Even then he chose to plead not guilty to aiding any specific act of terrorism. The Australian National University's Professor of Law Mr Donald Rothwell, told the ABC today that: "Given that it seems that this plea appears to have been given as a result of negotiations between the prosecution and the defence" it was likely that the charge that Hicks has pleaded not guilty to will be dropped.

We'll never truly know what happened to him after the US military took him from the aircraft carrier to the Egyptian facility. We could guess, though, that in between the drop-off and pick-up times things were done to him that the US didn't want its name associated with.

From there followed five years of "advanced interrogation techniques", of which the most physical aggression that is allowed is "water-boarding" (which, for those who don't know is the repeated dunking of the tied-down suspect into freezing water), Hicks was confined to his cell for up to twenty-two hours a day, subjected to sensory disturbance through variations to light and sound. Terry says that David grew his hair long to shield his eyes from the continual bright light.

Terry Hicks says that pleading guilty was a way to get home "... and that's what he's said to us. He just wants to be home."

South Australian Premier Mike Rann says that as Hicks can apply to serve his sentence in Australia, he would have no objections to Hicks being an inmate of the South Australian prison system. The Adelaide Advertiser today reported that contingency plans had been made for such a situation.

Adelaide's maximum-security prison, Yatala is only a few miles from Terry Hicks' home. This will make a travelling time to David's jail much shorter than the trip to Guantanamo. The South Australian Government, which runs the jail, will be unable to release David until the US tells it that justice has been served.

Professor Rothwell says that Hicks might be released as the result of a constitutional challenge: "but that's a long way down the track at the moment."

Has the US been making up new rules to deal with Hicks as the situation progresses? David Burnie has told the ABC tonight that "the concern is here is that he is facing a charge that was only brought into legislation last year." while Rothwell says that: "The circumstances of the last 24 hours indicate the fairly shambolic nature of the proceedings."

What happens next? Australian Democrats Senator Natasha Stott- Despoja has sounded a strong warning that events surrounding Hicks are going to remain a major election issue. . She said today that: "This government has been keen to exploit David Hicks as an electoral and political issue when it suits them", and more-than-hints at ongoing political ramifications for the Howard Cabinet when she says that: "It is the beginning of a saga for this government. It is the beginning of a saga for this government, this man and his family".