Hick's nice little earner..

[Gob]

The Commonwealth has dropped its attempt to seize the proceeds of David Hicks's memoir, Guantanamo, My Journey.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had sought to have the profits of the book declared "proceeds of crime".

In the Supreme Court of NSW this morning, Lionel Robberds, QC, told Justice Peter Garling the director had yesterday decided not to continue the case.

Mr Robberds said he had given the director advice last week.



"The director considered that advice and other advice and yesterday decided that he should not continue with these proceedings," he said.

"That position was communicated to the solicitors for the defendant yesterday."

Court orders made in August last year to freeze the proceeds of 30,000 sales of the book, estimated to be worth about $10,000 to Mr Hicks, were vacated.

The Commonwealth was ordered to pay Mr Hicks's costs. He was represented by barristers Julian Burnside, QC, and Stephen Free.

Mr Hicks was in court for the decision. Outside the court, the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner said he was unfairly pursued by the Australian government.

"In a way I feel that this has cleared my name and I hope now that the Australian government acknowledges that Guantanamo Bay and everything connected with it is illegal.

"I've always felt that it's always been political, whether back in the days of Guantanamo Bay and now I've been out for four years and we're still going and there's been some closure to that today.

"If there was actually any evidence, if any crime had been committed we would have been able to proceed at court but they've pulled the pin, they weren't prepared to fight us on that."

In the book, Mr Hicks tells his side of how he came to join the Taliban in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.

He pleaded guilty before a US military commission to providing material support for terrorism.

He spent five years at Guantanamo Bay before being returned to Australia under a plea deal in 2007.

He was transferred to Adelaide's Yatala Prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

He was released from prison in December 2007.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/david-hi ... z21V5tYriD

[Gob]

Long-held claims by the former detainee David Hicks that he was drugged against his will have been backed by evidence from a prominent attorney, independent investigations and previously secret reports.

Details of the mistreatment of the former Guantanamo Bay inmate were set to emerge publicly for the first time in the Australian government's proceeds of crime action against him - until the government abandoned its case. It would have been Mr Hicks's first day in a properly constituted court. But Commonwealth prosecutors decided that their case to seize revenue from his book about his Guantanamo experience would not stand up.

Mr Hicks's lawyers would have used new evidence from US authorities that would then have become public. By dropping the case, the shutters have been brought down on what happened, and some documents are to be kept secret.

The Sun-Herald understands that these documents were expected to shed light on the appalling treatment of detainees. The Sun-Herald has also been given affidavits that were to be presented in court confirming that Mr Hicks had been drugged against his will.

Other investigations show that Guantanamo Bay detainees, including David Hicks, were forced to take high dosages of the controversial anti-malaria drug mefloquine despite showing no signs of the disease, an unprecedented practice that has been likened to ''pharmacologic waterboarding'' by a US military doctor.

Questions have been raised about whether the mass administration of the drug to detainees was a secret, illegal experiment after a medical journal article last month by an army doctor, Major Remington Nevin, highlighted the ''inappropriate use'' of the drug, asking if its use had been motivated by its psychotic side effects. The US Centre for Disease Control has issued a warning against the use of mefloquine on anyone suffering psychiatric disturbances or having a history of depression. Dr Nevin has also warned that high doses of the drug can cause brain injuries.

Evidence including previously secret reports and witnesses including a Guantanamo guard, and New York lawyer, Josh Dratel, support Mr Hicks's claims that he was drugged. Mr Dratel, who has top secret security clearance from the US Department of Justice and has acted for a number of detainees including Mr Hicks, was to give direct evidence of the ''non-therapeutic'' drugging. In an affidavit prepared for the trial, Mr Dratel revealed that US prosecutors had admitted that Mr Hicks's claims that ''guards had forced him to eat a meal which contained a sedative before they read him the charges'' were true. He was told it had been done to protect the officers from his reactions.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/witnesse ... z26aK73p4I

[Scooter]

Ok, I don't give a shit if they were "unlawful combatants" or no, how the fuck does pumping people full of drugs for non-medical purposes not qualify as a war crime?

[Gob]

If we do it, it's a legitimate tactic in the war on terror.

If they do it, it's a clear example of terrorism at its most vile.

[loCAtek]

Mefloquine, while controversial, is not experimental;

Mefloquine


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Mefloquine hydrochloride (Lariam, Mephaquin or Mefliam) is an orally administered medication used in the prevention and treatment of malaria.
Mefloquine was developed in the 1970s at the United States Department of Defense's Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as a synthetic analogue of quinine.

Marketed as LARIAM® it's 'a widely-administered anti-malaria prophylaxis for expatriates and tourists travelling to malaria-endemic regions of the world.'

[The Hen]

The US Centre for Disease Control has issued a warning against the use of mefloquine on anyone suffering psychiatric disturbances or having a history of depression

Hicks has a history of depression.

[loCAtek]

It was mass administration to those living or traveling in a malaria-endemic region. It was either low-risk reaction due to his medical history, or possible case of infectious malaria in a prison population.

Afghanistan


All travelers should visit either their personal physician or a travel health clinic 4-8 weeks before departure.

Malaria:Â Prophylaxis with Lariam (mefloquine), Malarone (atovaquone/proguanil), or doxycycline is recommended for all areas lower than 2000 meters (6,561 feet) if the travel is during the months of April through December.


MD Travel Health

[The Hen]

I wonder what level 'a high dose' means?

[Gob]

It doesn't matter Hen, these drugs were used on Hicks in an unapproved manner to ensure his compliance with interrogation.

At standard doses, mefloquine can cause suicidal thoughts, paranoia, hallucinations, psychotic behavior, and convulsions; at large doses, side effects last from weeks to months. Detainees were administered five times the prophylactic dose of mefloquine without testing for malaria or contraindicating conditions. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), presumptive malaria treatment should only be reserved for extreme circumstances. Seton Hall research fellow Sean Camoni said “there is no legitimate medical purpose for treating malaria in this way,” suggesting the drug was administered for its severe side effects. If so, the drug’s administration violated international anti-torture laws.


The mefloquine tests are suspect because Cuba has been malaria-free for 50 years. Military doctors who raised doubts about the drug were ordered to remain silent, informed consent was waived for military “medical products,” and the Health and Human Services was given unprecedented authority to classify information regarding Guantanamo. According to Maj. Remington Nevin, an Army public health physician, the mefloquine effects “could be as severe as those intended through the application of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’”

There can be no justification for administering these drugs to Hicks and others.

One thing the Geneva Conventions prohibit is the use of drugs to interrogate prisoners


The essence of coercion is the compulsion of a person by a superior force, often a government, to do or refrain from doing something involuntarily. The intentional application of an unlawful force that robs a person of free will is coercive. However, circumstances that cause a person to reevaluate a course of action, even if deception is instrumental, may arguably be non-coercive pressure. Under the interpretation set forth in FM 34-52, “physical or mental torture and coercion revolve around the elimination of the source’s free will.”

These activities, along with “brainwashing,” are not authorized, it explains, but are not to be confused with the psychological techniques and ruses presented in the manual. FM 34-52 includes in the definition of mental coercion “drugs that may induce lasting and permanent mental alteration and damage.” This appears to reflect a change from earlier doctrine, which prohibited the use of any drugs on prisoners unless required for medical purposes.

In addition, its use contravenes Article 18, which states in part : “. . . no prisoner of war may be subject to . . . . medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental, or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.”

[loCAtek]

High-dose mefloquine in the treatment of multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria.


Source

Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.


Abstract

The therapeutic efficacy and toxicity of a high-dose (25 mg/kg) mefloquine regimen (M25) and the currently recommended regimen of 15 mg/kg (M15) were compared in 199 patients with acute falciparum malaria in an area with deteriorating multidrug resistance on the Thai-Burmese border. The clinical and parasitologic responses were significantly more rapid with M25. The incidence of treatment failures by day 7-9 was 7% for M15 and 1% for M25 (P = .03) and had increased to 40% and 9%, respectively, by day 28 (P < .0001). Overall failure rates were highest in children (P = .02). Parasite clearance times were a good predictor of the therapeutic response; all patients with parasitemia persisting > 5 days after treatment experienced subsequent recrudescence. Side effects were dose-related and included dizziness, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Although vomiting < 1 h after treatment was more likely in young children, children overall tolerated mefloquine better than adults, and men better than women. The optimum treatment dose of mefloquine in this area is 25 mg/kg.

This dosage was appropriate for Afghanistan;

War, the breakdown of the health system, population displacement and poverty have led to a malaria epidemic in Afghanistan that has lasted for more than 20 years.


Malaria Control in Complex Emergencies - An Inter-Agency Field Handbook (WHO; 2005; 246 pages)

ETA Hicks was in Afghanistan from January 2001 to December 2001

[The Hen]

I wonder why they didn't chose the other available treatments?

None of those produce a psychotic reaction in those that are depressed and, according to my research, only were needed in a low dose as there were no symptoms of malaria at the camp.

Interesting.

[loCAtek]

Did Hicks disclose his depression? Then he got what every other detainee and military member deployed to that region got.
As well as, many other medical precautions.

Did it cause him to disclose any more intel than he wished to give?

[The Hen]

Did Hicks disclose his depression?

Yes.

Some how I reckon he wasn't the only inmate with depression issues there.

Interesting that they would use high dosages of a detrimental medicscation in the interests of health when other less damaging meds were also available.

[Lord Jim]

In the book, Mr Hicks tells his side of how he came to join the Taliban in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.

He pleaded guilty before a US military commission to providing material support for terrorism.

You'll forgive me if I don't double over with a case of the boo hoos for the plight of this rotten, terrorism supporting bastard....

[Scooter]

That's fine, Jim, but that's still no reason to go all Dr. Mengele on prisoners.

[Gob]

A former Guantanamo Bay medical officer has said he cannot explain why medical records would be redacted to keep secret some of the drugs and dosage levels given to detainees, including David Hicks.

Montgomery J. Granger, who published Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior, about his time at the detention centre, told The Sun-Herald that blocking out names of drugs on detainees' records would have been done by someone in intelligence, not medical staff. ''I can't imagine what the reason would be,'' he said last week.

The interview with the now retired US army reserve major followed revelations in The Sun-Herald that Mr Hicks and other detainees were drugged against their will with unknown substances and that detainee medical records were incomplete, with names of drugs removed.

Details of the mistreatment of Mr Hicks were set to emerge publicly for the first time during legal action by the federal government to stop him receiving proceeds from his book Guantanamo: My Journey, until the government abandoned the case.

Witnesses and previously secret documents were to have backed up his long-held claims of abuse. Commonwealth prosecutors decided the proceeds of crime case would not stand up in court and dropped the action.

Mr Granger said that in his six months at Guantanamo, staff went to great lengths to explain to detainees the drugs they were given and why.

But that was contradicted by a former Guantanamo Bay guard, Brandon Neely, who said detainees often refused medications, some because they didn't know what they were.

''They were scared. Some refused to drink protein shakes, because they didn't know what it was and they thought they were being poisoned,'' Mr Neely said.

A separate review of nine detainees' case records undertaken by Dr Vincent Iacopino, from Physicians for Human Rights, and a former US Army brigadier general, Stephen Xenakis, has also indicated that doctors and mental health staff with the US Department of Defence neglected and/or concealed medical evidence of intentional harm.

Their report said the full extent of medical complicity in US torture practices will never be known until there is an impartial investigation, with classified information included.

But attempts by the Greens last week to get parliamentary backing for an inquiry into the former Howard government's role in the treatment of Mr Hicks was voted down by both the government and opposition.

The Greens' spokeswoman for legal affairs, Penny Wright, said all Australians should be worried by the clear determination of both sides of government to sweep the Hicks case under the carpet.

"David Hicks was held at Guantanamo Bay for years without charge. He was subject to cruel and degrading treatment, kept in deplorable conditions and didn't have access to a lawyer for a very long time; all the while the Australian government stood by and let it happen," Senator Wright said.

[The Hen]

They (the Aus Gov) should have supported Hicks.

This is how you create folk heros and not particularly for all the correct reasons.

[Lord Jim]

''I can't imagine what the reason would be,'' he said last week.

That's because it's not his end of the business....

How's this for a guess:

Maybe we've developed a new, more effective generation of sodium pentathlon type drugs and we'd just as soon not let the terrorists know about it so they can do their own testing and try to train folks to be able to beat them....

[Lord Jim]

They (the Aus Gov) should have supported Hicks.

Hen, why should the Australian government have supported a guy who joined the Taliban, and was picked up on the battle field fighting against coalition forces, (including his fellow countrymen?)

[Scooter]

And if you used such drugs on prisoners that would be a war crime.