Please explain

[Aussie leftie]

If an accused person (David Hicks) after being held in remand for 5 years (Guantanamo Bay) agrees to a plea bargain, is it common practice that he should have to prove his guilt to a judge? Is this done in general legal practice in the US?

I admit that he may have strayed into bad company back in 2001, but from what I've read about him, what he had done was no worse than any run-of-the-mill mercenary usually does. He was handed over to the US troops by the Northern Alliance for $1000. He was not fighting with the Taliban, but trying to return to Australia.

I cannot blame him for going along with the plea bargain, because I wouldnt want him or anybody else to spend any time at all in that hell-hole.

What a master stroke of legal (make up the rules as you go along) shit to vindicate the Bush administration and the Howard government for letting him rot there for the past 5 years. Now they can say that he has admitted that he was guilty all along.

The lines have truly blurred when it comes to trying to decide who are the goodies and who are the baddies.

[GregD]

1. pleading guilty, as far as I know

ends the trial. I don't think anything must be proven beyond that point.

[Aussie leftie]

2. It just goes to prove what a sham this whole procedure is.