MIAMI, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- David Hicks, the first man convicted of war crimes at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has asked an appeals court to overturn his conviction, court documents show.
His 12-page appeal, filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, argues that his guilty plea to "providing material support for terrorism" was a desperate act of a Guantanamo prison captive of five years.
He left Guantanamo in 2007 after a plea deal allowed him to finish a nine-month prison term in his native Australia.
The charge to which Hicks, 38, pleaded guilty has since been disqualified by U.S. appeals courts as a legitimate war crime for Guantanamo captives, The Miami Herald reported.
Northern alliance troops in Afghanistan, allied with U.S. troops, captured Hicks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and turned him over to U.S. forces. He was held aboard a warship off the coast and treated as a valuable intelligence asset because he spoke English and was brought to the Guantanamo prison in January 2002 in the first group of terrorism-related detainees, the newspaper said.
