'The American Taliban' again asks for mercy
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the Marin County native who became known as "The American Taliban" when he was seized with Afghan soldiers after a prison uprising in November 2001, made a third attempt Wednesday to ask President Bush to commute or reduce his 20-year sentence.
Attorney James Brosnahan, joining Lindh's parents at a San Francisco news conference, cited a 9-month sentence a U.S. military tribunal handed down Friday to Australian David Hicks, a confessed al Qaeda trainee convicted of supporting terrorism by readying to fight Americans in Afghanistan in 2001.
Lindh, a 26-year-old convert to Islam, has 13 years left on a sentence he received in July 2002, when he pleaded guilty in a federal court in Alexandria, Va., to aiding and carrying weapons for the Taliban in a deal with prosecutors, who dropped terror charges.
"It's quite a difference," his mother, Marilyn Walker, said Wednesday of the sentences in the two cases. Reading a prepared statement, she said, "John did not go to Afghanistan to fight against America. He never fought against America. John has spoken out strongly against terrorism in any form."
A White House spokesman referred calls Wednesday to the U.S. Justice Department, which in a written statement said only that a previous request to commute Lindh's sentence "remains pending." Brosnahan said he had twice made the request but had never received a response.
"If Mr. Lindh wishes to provide additional facts and information pertaining to his application," the Justice Department statement said, "we are happy to take these facts under consideration."
Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesman, said the prosecutions of Lindh and Hicks, 31, were "truly apples and oranges," with the government viewing Lindh's case as more serious.
One factor in Hicks' sentencing, Gordon said, was that he was detained for more than five years at the prison at Guantanamo Bay before he got his day in court.
"Hicks was never implicated in anyone's death," Gordon said, referring to the slaying of CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann in an uprising at a prison where Taliban fighters were being held. Spann was killed not long after he questioned Lindh there.
The reference to Spann angered Brosnahan, who noted that a judge accepted his client's plea only after prosecutors said they had no evidence implicating Lindh in Spann's death.
Lindh went to Yemen at age 18 to study his religion and ended up a Taliban foot soldier and a self-described holy warrior, although he said he never fired a weapon in combat and never intended to fight against Americans. His attorneys depicted him as a naïve young man who got in over his head.
Like Hicks, Lindh agreed in his plea deal not to pursue claims that he was mistreated while in U.S. custody. Brosnahan said Lindh was stripped for interrogation, while a bullet fired during the prison riot was left inside his right leg for 15 days.
In petitioning the president, Brosnahan, a former federal prosecutor, pointed to a "climate change" since the months after al Qaeda's attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, in which Americans are less fearful and "in a better mood to get justice."
The attorney also said Lindh had a "genuine religious experience (before his arrest) that I think the president can understand."
Brosnahan declined to provide a copy of his new petition for legal reasons; under Lindh's plea deal, he is barred from speaking about his case to anyone other than his lawyers and family. Lindh is now at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., where he was transferred in December from a prison in Victorville (San Bernardino County). His parents said they have not seen him since his move but will be allowed to visit him in the future.
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