David Hicks

David Hicks
David Hicks speaking in 2012
Born	David Andrew Hicks (1975-08-07) 7 August 1975 (age 41) Adelaide, South Australia
Nationality	Australian
Spouse(s)	Erin Keniry
Parent(s)	Terry and Susan Hicks

David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who was detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2001 until 2007. He had attended the Al Farouq training camp para-military training in Afghanistan during 2001.

In 2007 Hicks consented to a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to charges of providing material support for terrorism by the United States Guantanamo military commission under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Hicks received a suspended sentence and returned to Australia. The conviction was overturned by the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review in February 2015.

Hicks became one of the first people charged and subsequently convicted under the Military Commissions Act. There was widespread Australian and international criticism and political controversy over Hicks' treatment, the evidence tendered against him, his trial outcome, and the newly created legal system under which he was prosecuted. In October 2012 the United States Court of Appeals ruled that the charge under which Hicks had been convicted was invalid because the law did not exist at the time of the alleged offence, and it could not be applied retroactively.

In January 2015, Hicks' lawyer announced that the US government had said that it does not dispute he is innocent and his conviction was not correct.

Earlier, during 1999, Hicks converted to Islam and took the name Muhammed Dawood (محمد داود). He was later reported to have been publicly denounced due to his lack of religious observance. Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 by the Afghan Northern Alliance and sold for a US$5,000 bounty to the United States military. He was transported to Guantanamo Bay where he was designated an enemy combatant. He alleges that during his detention, he was tortured via anal examination. The United States first filed charges against Hicks in 2004 under a military commission system newly created by Presidential Order. Those proceedings failed in 2006 when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that the military commission system was unconstitutional. The military commission system was re-established by an act of the United States Congress.