Australia media was reporting Saturday that self-confessed al-Qaida foot soldier David Hicks had left more than five years confinement at the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of a plea deal.

Hicks, 31, pleaded guilty in March to providing material support for terrorism, the first conviction so far at President Bush’s war court in remote southeast Cuba – and the first at a U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II.

In exchange, Hicks will serve out the rest of a nine-month sentence in his homeland and be free by New Year’s Eve.

Under Bush administration policy, the Pentagon does not confirm that a captive has departed Guantnamo until after he has arrived in another country. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site that a military aircraft transporting Hicks was expected to make a Saturday fueling stop in Tahiti.

“A thick veil of secrecy has been thrown over the operation to fly Hicks home from Cuba to Adelaide (Australia),” it added.

Aboard the plane, it said, were Adelaide attorney David McLeod, a lawyer in the Australian military reserves, who had advised Hicks and his defense lawyers at Guantanamo, two senior South Australian prison guards and military personnel.

It was to land at an Australian air force base Sunday morning.

The radio network ABC Australia on Saturday also reported the departure of that nation’s last remaining national at the remote Navy base in southeast Cuba. It called the trip home “the culmination of an intensive political and legal campaign to get Hicks out of Guantanamo.”