I saw how David Hicks was treated - Morrison must step up for Julian Assange

It’s now time for the Australian government to act to protect the wellbeing of an Australian citizen who is in difficulty and at serious risk of harm. I speak of Julian Assange.

In early 2007 I secured a plea deal for another Australian citizen, David Hicks, to bring him home from Guantanamo Bay where he had been incarcerated for seven years by the US legal system. Hicks, like Assange, was charged with alleged offences that did not take place in the United States. He was abducted from Afghanistan to US territory to be the subject of a show trial for a political purpose.

Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017.Credit: AP

Assange can’t be abducted from Britain but he can be extradited to the US. Expert medical opinion is that he is very unwell and will be at risk of serious harm in the US prison system. That risk should not be a surprise to any of us. It is certainly not a surprise to me having seen the treatment of Hicks in that penal system.

The Australian government should not be a bystander as this happens to one of its citizens. There was widespread disapproval in the Australian public of what Hicks was accused of doing and I suspect the same is true for Assange. As a soldier for 43 years and a former director of military prosecutions and a former integrity commissioner, I too disapprove of that alleged conduct. However, that is not the point.

Assange has done the time for the crime. He has effectively been deprived of his liberty for a decade and faces many more years in the US, a sentence that far exceeds a proportionate penalty. What is critical is the public’s view about an Australian being left at the mercy of another country’s harsh legal system with the seeming disregard of the Australian authorities.

For David Hicks, the public mood began to change following the efforts of his US Marine lawyer Major Dan Mori, to publicise his case. Community and legal groups began to agitate for his return and a groundswell of public support became obvious by late 2006.

David Hicks leaves Yatala Prison in Adelaide in 2007, after six years in captivity.Credit: Shannon Morris

Up till that time the US Military Commission prosecutors had been adamant in their refusal to consider any sort of plea negotiations with Mori and me but that quickly changed as the Australian public mood about Hicks’ continuing detention grew. From a blanket refusal to negotiate, then a demand for life imprisonment, then 15 years, we suddenly found ourselves negotiating a release for time served plus seven months in an Adelaide prison.

Most significantly, this negotiation with Justice Department lawyers was done without the knowledge of the commission prosecutors and the Department of Defence. That can only have been the result of political pressure at the highest level.

I can say, having served with US forces in Somalia and Iraq and for two years with the British Army in Europe, that our major allies value our close military relationship but do not respect weakness. They would never abandon one of their own citizens to an unfair process. Then Australian prime minister John Howard recognised the unfairness of the treatment of Hicks and I am sure he took the necessary steps to fix that. Current Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has recognised the unfairness of extraditing Assange to the US.

It is time for our sitting Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to use the strong bonds that set the foundations for the inception of the AUKUS agreement to secure the protection of Assange, such that all Australian citizens can be sure of the protection of their country. As is their right as an Australian citizen.

Michael Griffin led the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity from 2015 to 2020. He is a former director of military prosecutions and was Australian defence counsel for David Hicks.