By Jane Sutton
During his five years at Guantanamo, the man known as the "Aussie Taliban" was beaten, threatened with deadly violence, sexually assaulted, deprived of sleep for long periods and told that he would never again set foot in his native land, his lawyers said.
The former kangaroo skinner was despondent and suicidal when he pleaded guilty in March 2007 to providing material support for terrorism, they said.
The plea deal made Hicks the first person convicted in a U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War Two and allowed him to return to Australia to finish his nine-month sentence.
"When the government dangled the prospect of freedom before him, he was finally willing to drink from the poisoned chalice," his lawyers said in the appeal filed in the Court of Military Commission Review in Washington.
Hicks, now 38 and free in Australia, was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and was in the first group of prisoners sent to Guantanamo when the detention camp opened on January 11, 2002.
Hicks has admitted he trained at paramilitary camps in Afghanistan but said he saw no evidence of terrorism activity. The U.S. government says they were al Qaeda camps.
Hicks said he joined a group of Taliban fighters but fled his first battle, sold his gun to raise cab fare and was captured by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance as he tried to escape into Pakistan. He said he never fought against U.S. or allied forces.
In the appeal, his lawyers argued that the Guantanamo tribunal had no jurisdiction to charge Hicks with material support and that the conviction should be thrown out because the plea deal was coerced.
"A plea induced by the unholy trinity of violence, threats and improper promises cannot be allowed to stand," they wrote.
His lawyers said previously that Hicks has a good chance of winning the appeal because of a ruling last year that undermined several Guantanamo convictions.
In 2012, a U.S. appeals court in Washington ruled in the case of another Guantanamo convict, Osama bin Laden's one-time driver and bodyguard Salim Hamdan, that providing material support for terrorism was not recognized as a war crime during the time Hamdan and Hicks were in Afghanistan.
They were prosecuted under a U.S. law enacted in 2006 and the court said it could not be applied retroactively. The ruling overturned Hamdan's conviction.
During his sentencing hearing, Hicks signed a form waiving his right to appeal, but his lawyers said the form was never filed with tribunal authorities and therefore is irrelevant.
If he loses in the military appeals court, Hicks could appeal to a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I am looking forward to putting Guantanamo behind me, and this formal acknowledgment of the illegality of the military commissions system is the final step in that process," The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday quoted Hicks as saying.
A former Guantanamo prosecutor, among others, said previously that Hicks' plea deal was orchestrated by then-Vice President Dick Cheney as a favour to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Howard was facing a tough election, which he lost, and had been widely criticized for failing to stand up for Hicks' rights as an Australian citizen.
(Reporting by Jane Sutton; Editing by Vicki Allen)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/19694598/australian-asks-u-s-court-to-overturn-his-guantanamo-conviction/
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