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| Australia's worst Prime Minister since 1901, Tony Abbott. |
The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has just won the "International Jerk of the Year Award".
He won it on his own without any significant help from anyone else.
Within hours of a US Military Court overturning David Hicks' unlawful terrorism conviction, the Mad Monk and Class Clown of the House of Representatives went on the airwaves saying there would be no "beg your pardons" and no apology to this innocent man.
A man innocent in law according to a United States' Military Court!
Tony Abbott has proved once and for all that he does not have one ounce of decency in his body.
Not one scintilla of fairness has ever come from this man who is as fit to to be the Prime Minister of Australia as Attila the Hun.
He backs saving the lives of convicted drug smugglers but is too spineless to offer an apology to a totally innocent man - according to the courts of the United States of America.
Here was a rare opportunity to apologise to a man no longer bearing any taint of illegality but Tony Abbott chose to continue the Liberal Party despicable attack on David Hicks, so eloquently given life by the troglodyte of Australian politics John Howard.
Tony Abbott's media advisers, script writers and PR spin doctors should be shunted to Siberia or North Korea where their professional standing would be highly regarded.
But David Hicks will have the last laugh because as an innocent man having no conviction recorded against him, he is now free to write his book without any fear of seizure of the profits under the proceeds of crime legislation.
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| David Hicks' terrorism conviction has been overturned. |
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has dismissed calls for the Australian government to apologise to David Hicks following the quashing of his terrorism conviction.
The ruling by a US military court brings an end to an almost decade-long legal saga.
Mr Hicks' father, Terry, says the prospect of seeking compensation was unlikely but an apology was needed from the government, but he is not confident it will be forthcoming.
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"When you've got a government saying David Hicks is a terrorist, guilty of this and guilty of that, and then he's found not guilty, it leaves a few red faces," Mr Hicks told ABC radio on Thursday.
"So I think they're going to find it very hard to apologise."
The Prime Minister is unsympathetic.
"He was up to no good on his own admission," Mr Abbott told reporters in Launceston.
"I'm not in the business of apologising for the actions that Australian governments take to protect our country."
Asked if Australia had done enough to help Mr Hicks, Mr Abbott said: "We did what was needed."
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten believes the government has questions to answer about David Hicks' treatment.
"There is no doubt on one hand David Hicks was probably foolish to get caught up in that Afghanistan conflict, but clearly there has been an injustice done to him," Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.
Earlier, Liberal frontbencher Bruce Billson rejected calls for an apology and alluded to Mr Hicks' time at an al-Qaeda training camp.
"He certainly wasn't at a scout jamboree," Mr Billson told Sky News.
Mr Hicks had pleaded guilty in March 2007 to providing material support to terrorism.
This was part of a plea bargain that allowed most of his seven-year sentence to be suspended and Mr Hicks to return to Australia.
In 2014, a US appeal court ruled that providing material support to terrorism was not a legally viable war crime under the jurisdiction of the Guantanamo court in Cuba.
Prosecutors had argued his conviction should stand because he had agreed not to appeal as part of the plea deal.
But the argument was rejected in a unanimous decision by the US Court of Military Commission Review.
Mr Hicks' story began about 15 years ago when he left Australia to travel to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, where he joined an al-Qaeda training camp.
He was later picked up by the US and taken to the US Navy base and military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
David Hicks will address the media in Sydney on Thursday.
