U.S. Military Appeals Court Overturns Guantanamo Conviction of Australian Man (February 18, 2014) [1]
On February 18, 2015, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, a military appeals court, overturned the conviction [3] of David Hicks, an Australian man who pled guilty [4] in 2007 to providing material support to a terrorist organization. The Commission dismissed the finding of guilty and vacated Hicks’s seven-year sentence on the ground that the charge was not a crime at the time of Hicks’s plea. Citing U.S. v. Al Bahlul [5], the Commission noted that the case “was a plain ex post facto violation” and the “conviction cannot stand on the merits.” Hicks, who admitted to receiving military training from and joining Al Qaeda in 2001, was the first detainee convicted through the criminal tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was transferred to the custody of the Australian government within two months of receiving his sentence in accordance with his pretrial agreement.