Asia-Pacific News

Australian guilty of terrorism in first Guantanamo verdict

Mar 30, 2007, 16:27 GMT

Sydney - David Hicks, an Australian who has admitted he trained with al-Qaeda, was formally convicted Friday of material support for terrorists, news reports said.

Hicks, 31, will receive a maximum of seven years in jail under a plea deal, the Sydney Morning Herald reported from his trial by a special US military commission at the Guantanamo Bay base on Cuba.

A convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, Hicks is the first Guantanamo prisoner to have his case brought before the commissions set up to try terror suspects. Years of legal wrangling preceded the trial.

Military prosecutors alleged that Hicks attended al-Qaeda training sessions and travelled to Afghanistan from Pakistan after the September 11 attacks, to join the fight against the US-led coalition. They say he was issued a gun and ammunition at Kandahar airport and was ready to go into combat against US troops and their allies.

Hicks, whose alleged nicknames included Abu Muslim Australia, would have faced up to 20 years in prison if he had contested the charges and then been convicted.

Guantanamo holds about 385 detainees, including 14 high-level suspects transferred there last year after being held at secret CIA sites abroad.

His arraignment this week marked the resumption of tribunals after they were halted in 2004 over lawsuits filed in US courts challenging their legitimacy. The US Supreme Court ruled last summer that the tribunals could not continue unless President George W Bush got explicit authorization from Congress, which lawmakers approved late last year.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur