Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty at the Guant‡namo Bay Navy Base yesterday to supporting terrorism in exchange for a nine-month prison sentence under a plea deal that forbids him from claiming he was abused in U.S. custody.
In return, Hicks, 31, will be allowed to leave Guant‡namo within 60 days to serve out the sentence in his native Australia. He will be free by New Year’s Eve.
“They told us this was one of the world’s worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.