© AAP Image David Hicks's lawyer says the US has admitted the former Guantanamo Bay inmate is innocent and his terrorism conviction is invalid.
David Hicks is set to have his terrorism conviction overturned after the US conceded that the former Guantanamo Bay inmate is innocent, his lawyer says.
Stephen Kenny has told Fairfax Media that the US did not dispute his client's innocence, and the 2007 conviction for providing material support for terrorism was invalid.
Mr Kenny said the case mirrored that of another Guantanamo Bay detainee, Noor Muhammed, who had charges against him dropped and his conviction withdrawn this month.
He said the military commission set aside Mr Muhammed's conviction and the same was expected for Mr Hicks.
"We are hoping that the military commission will make a ruling within a month," Mr Kenny said.
Adelaide-born Mr Hicks was 26 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which believed he was fighting for al-Qaeda.
He was held in the US-run jail in Cuba until 2007, when he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and was sent to Adelaide's Yatala Prison to serve the rest of his seven-year sentence.
He was released under a control order later that year.
Hicks said he only pleaded guilty in an Alford plea agreement to escape the "indefinite solitary confinement I was suffering in Guantanamo Bay".
"I am just sorry it has taken so long to clear my name."
msn.com 23 Jan 2015
An enormous injustice on behalf of the United States government, even though there was no real 'intelligence' suggesting that Hicks was a 'terrorist'.
This is not an isolated incident, but the criminal actions of the US government go unpunished.
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