Appeals court throws out terror support conviction

Mr Hicks was returned to his native Australia in 2007 after nearly six years in the US concentration camp in Cuba as part of a deal that saw him serve a nine-month sentence in Australia for providing material support for terrorism.

But on Tuesday a US federal appeals court threw out an identical conviction of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

In a unanimous ruling the appeals court said that material support for terrorism was not a war crime under international law at the time Mr Hamdan engaged in the activity for which he was convicted.

It is likely that Mr Hicks will be the first of several to challenge the legality of the proceedings in the light of the Hamdan decision.

To date, the cases against seven Guantanamo Bay prisoners under the military commission system have involved the charge of material support for terrorism.

In 2006, Mr Hamdan's lawyers successfully challenged the system of military commissions set up by President George Bush.

That resulted in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 under which he was eventually tried.

A six-member military jury in 2008 cleared Mr Hamdan of conspiracy while finding him guilty of material support for terrorism.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights praised Tuesday's decision but said that it did not go far enough.

It holds that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are civilians under the laws of war and must be charged under domestic laws or released, rather than being tried by military commissions.

Human Rights First lawyer Raha Wala said the case has repercussions for "every other flawed military commissions case like it.

"It's a basic rule of law that a defendant can't be prosecuted for acts that were not criminal at the time they were committed."

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Zachary Katznelson said the decision "strikes the biggest blow yet against the legitimacy of the Guantanamo military commissions, which have for years now been trying people for a supposed war crime that in fact is not a war crime at all."