Haunting past: ‘Aussie Taliban’ vows to fight terror conviction

Hicks was captured in Afghanistan and spent more than five years at Guantanamo Bay.

SYDNEY:

David Hicks, once dubbed the ‘Aussie Taliban’, after being captured in Afghanistan and spending more than five years at Guantanamo Bay, vowed to clear his name on Wednesday after filing an appeal against his conviction.

Hicks agreed to a plea deal in 2007 which saw him return to Australia to serve out a nine-month sentence for providing material support for terrorism. He says it was made under duress after five-and-a-half years in the US military-run prison.

Hicks, now 38 and living in Sydney where he works as a panel-beater, said the move was ‘all about recognising that my conviction should be null and void’.

“The purpose of this action [filing the appeal] is to obtain formal recognition of my innocence so that the wrongs of the past committed against me can be righted, to put it all behind me and move on with my life,” he told reporters.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2013.