Guantanamo conviction of Australian is overturned

[unhappycamper]

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/02/guantanamo-conviction-australian-overturned

Guantanamo conviction of Australian is overturned
By Matt Apuzzo
The New York Times
© February 19, 2015

WASHINGTON

A military appeals court Wednesday overturned the terrorism conviction of an Australian whose guilty plea was once hailed as a sign that the tribunal system at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison would be swift and effective.

That prediction proved to be wrong. The system has endured a decade of fits, starts and do-overs. With its decision Wednesday, the Court of Military Commission Review threw out the conviction of the Australian, David Hicks, who trained with al-Qaida and whose case was one of the tribunal system’s few successes.

Hicks had pleaded guilty to a charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization, but the court found that that was not considered a war crime at the time of the plea and was not eligible to be heard at Guantánamo. The Pentagon has acknowledged that to be the case, but the Obama administration argued that Hicks was technically not eligible to appeal the conviction. The court disagreed.

Hicks, who was sentenced to nine months in prison in 2007, has been living in Australia for years. The court’s decision will remove the terrorism conviction from Hicks’ record.

[libodem]

1. hmmm?

What ever happened to that kid who was the "American Teleban" ? Is he still rotting in a prison somewhere?

What the heck was his name? He was sure in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[unhappycamper]

2. John Walker Lindh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_Lindh

Imprisonment

In January 2003, Lindh was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary, Victorville, a high-security facility northeast of Los Angeles. On March 3, 2003, Lindh was tackled by inmate Richard Dale Morrison. He assaulted Lindh at prayer, causing bruises on his forehead. On July 2, 2003, Morrison was charged with a misdemeanor count of assault.

Lindh was held in Federal Supermax ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado for a short time. He is currently serving his sentence, with a projected release date of May 23, 2019, at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana[37] in the Communication Management Unit.[38]

In April 2007, citing the reduced sentence for the Australian prisoner David Matthew Hicks, Lindh's attorneys made a public plea for a Presidential commutation to lower his 20-year sentence. In January 2009, the Lindh family's petition for clemency was denied by President Bush in one of his final acts in office. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, all "special administrative measures" in place against Lindh expired on March 20, 2009, as part of a gradual easing of restrictions on him.[39]

In 2010, Lindh and the Syrian-American prisoner Enaam Arnaout sued to lift restrictions on group prayer by Muslim inmates in the Communication Management Unit.[38] On January 11, 2013, a federal judge ruled in their favor, saying that the government had shown no compelling interest in restricting the religious speech of the inmates by prohibiting them from praying together.[40]

[libodem]

3. Yes, that's who I was thinking of

Thank you for the info.

I would love to see an interview of his perspective. I'll be waiting until hell freezes over. Pretty sure.