Australian terror supporter home from Guantanamo

ADELAIDE, May 20 (Reuters) The first Guantanamo Bay inmate convicted of terror charges by a US military court returned to Australia TOday to serve out his sentence in a maximum security prison, authorities said.

David Hicks, 31, was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and spent five years in Guantanamo Bay before he was sentenced in March to seven years in jail after he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism.

Under a deal with US prosecutors, most of his jail sentence was suspended and Hicks will be able to walk free from prison before January 1, 2008.

Hicks was the first person convicted by a US war crimes tribunal since World War Two and was the first of hundreds of foreign captives, held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, to face a military trial.

At his trial, Hicks acknowledged he had trained with the al Qaeda militant network, fought U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours, and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee to neighbouring Pakistan by taxi.

Prosecutors said Hicks met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, but Hicks denied any advance knowledge of the attacks.

His military attorney, Major Michael Mori, portrayed Hicks as an apologetic soldier wannabe who never shot at anyone and ran away when he got a taste of battle, but prosecutors said Hicks freely joined a band of killers who slaughtered innocent people.

REUTERS KK VP0615