Court nixes Guantanamo conviction of Australian ex-detainee

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Court nixes Guantanamo conviction of Australian ex-detainee
By BEN FOX, Associated Press | February 18, 2015 | Updated: February 18, 2015 6:56pm

MIAMI (AP) — An appeals court on Wednesday struck down the terrorism conviction of Australian David Hicks, reversing one of the few successful prosecutions of a prisoner before a U.S. military court at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. Court of Military Commission Review vacated Hicks' March 2007 guilty plea, the first conviction of a prisoner at the base in Cuba and still one of only a handful.

"We had been waiting for this decision for years," Hicks said at a news conference in Sydney. "It's a relief because it's over."

Hicks, 39, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism. It was a plea bargain in which all but nine months of his seven-year sentence was suspended and he was allowed to return home by the end of that year.




Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Court-nixes-Guantanamo-conviction-of-Australian-6087578.php

[mackerel]

1. I read somewhere that he had converted to Islam but they kick him out because

he wasn't devout enough.