GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, March 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. military tribunal sentenced Australian al Qaeda trainee David Hicks on Friday to seven years in prison but he will only have to serve nine months of the sentence.

Hicks, who became the first war crimes convict among the hundreds of foreign captives held for years at the Guantanamo prison camp, had pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism in an agreement with U.S. military prosecutors.

The deal allows all but nine months of the sentence to be be suspended. He will serve it in Australia and the United States must send him home by May 29.

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