Or rather, the first 'confession' obtained from anyone at Gitmo. By an Australian held there for over five years now, only obtained in exchange for a deal that only makes him serve 9 months in prison in his home country of Australia, a deal that was kept secret from the military panel in charge of sentencing so when they handed down a seven year sentence... bam, secret agreement unlocked that limited that sentence to 9 months, he gets to go home.
To be honest, I don't care what another country was trying to convict me of, if I only needed to plead guilty in exchange for going home after being kept under lock and key for half a decade, I'd take that bargain in a heartbeat. So while I'm sure all the news pundits will start trumpeting this as proving Gitmo can be a success and can work... read between the lines, look at how few point out that the only reason this 'conviction' happened is because the sentence-limit of the plea agreement was kept secret from the sentencing panel and because the person was already kept imprisoned for over five years first.4 commentsLeave a comment
Frankly, I would not be surprised if this guy gets picked up again, and winds up back in prision for terrorist charges. Quite a few of those folks in Gitmo are repeat offenders.
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...but I honestly can't tell if this reply is meant to be a joke or serious, due to the date posted and that it could be read either way. For the moment, I'm screening it, and any other replies/comments I get until April 2nd rolls around.
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It was meant to be serious. There is a large percentage of detainees that are "repeat offenders" who were recaptured on the battlefield shortly after they were released.
Of course, this does not include the other part of the group there that their own countries do not want anything to do with them.
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Thanks for explaining, and being patient enough to wait until that accursed date had passed to do so. Original comment unscreened. =^.^=
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