David Hicks’ 2007 terrorism conviction has been struck down by a US military court. In other words, he was incarcerated in the hell called Guantánamo for five and a half years from January 2002 despite never having committed a crime.

The response by Tony Abbott and his ilk to this blatant injustice reminds us that their talk of fighting terror to defend our freedoms and the rule of law is nothing but hypocritical cant.

Tortured, force fed, beaten and held shackled in solitary confinement, Hicks will live with both psychological and physical trauma for the rest of his life. Serious physical injuries make it difficult to earn a living and require expensive treatment.

An interview Hicks gave to the Guardian is heartbreaking.

“It’s almost like a bit of shame that I’ve had to carry with me, that I wasn’t able to be stronger or more resistant while in Guantánamo”, he said.

Who would have been stronger? Denied books, he was permitted only a short religious text in July 2006. The light blazed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Major Michael Dante (Dan) Mori, the US Marine appointed as Hicks’ lawyer, later wrote: “The isolation was breaking him.” To survive, to escape indefinite imprisonment, he agreed to plead guilty to a crime he never committed.

Mori insists that the US would have returned him sooner. He has never wavered from the opinion that his client’s true jailers were Australian prime minister John Howard and Phillip Ruddock, who was attorney general from October 2003.

Hicks was a scapegoat to justify draconian anti-terror laws. Three days after he arrived in Guantanamo, the then attorney general, Daryl Williams, condemned him as one of the most dangerous men in the world. Hicks would not be charged with anything until six months later. Yet the media lies started immediately.

Brandon Neely, a former Guantánamo guard, says: “There has been a big myth that when David got off the bus that day [when he arrived] he said he would kill an American soldier … I will tell you right now from my mouth, the man who took David off that bus … at Camp X-Ray, that is a flat out lie.” He says Hicks was quiet and wanted to see his family.

After nine months in Adelaide jail, Hicks was subjected to a gag order and a control order and had his bank accounts frozen. Under the plea agreement, the US has the right to hunt him down as an enemy combatant if he leaves Australia.

Abbott and the Murdoch press sneer at those who condemn this travesty as bleeding hearts. They dismiss the overturn of Hicks’ conviction as a “technicality” and persist with screaming headlines such as “Guilty forever” and “Hicks is no innocent abroad”. Hicks’ lawyer, Mark Kenny, has explained many times that it is not a technicality. The ruling confirms his client was innocent.

Abbott callously trivialises this monumental abuse of human rights by saying “he was up to no good”, as if he got a bit of a reprimand. He says the treatment is necessary to protect Australia. From what? David Hicks never killed or confined anyone.

By contrast, the filth who rule this country and their media backers have blatantly come out in favour of torture and jail without trial.