Lindh Pleads For Lighter Sentence
The family and legal team of John Walker Lindh, who is known as the American Taliban from San Anselmo, is once again asking President Bush to shorten his 20-year prison sentence. James Brosnahan told people at a news conference that he does not beleive that Lindh should have to stay in prison till 2019 if he was not even convicted of a terrorism-related crime. He stated that it is not fair for him if Australian citizen David Hicks can be home by 2008 after pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism.
“This is a question of proportionality, this is a question of fairness,” he said, flanked by Lindh’s parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker. “This is not sophisticated, this is not complicated … this is a simple cry for justice.” Brosnahan said a petition for commutation of Lindh’s sentence would be sent later this week to the Department of Justice and to the White House Counsel’s office. The government ignored earlier petitions that were filed in September 2004 and December 2005.
Brosnahan said the petition won’t be made public: “We’re not at liberty to do that today. Legally, from our standpoint, we cannot.” But if he could speak directly to President Bush, he said, he would say, “Nobody knows better than you what happens in a time of war,” and would note that Lindh’s awful publicity and heavy sentence in the emotionally charged months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, now seem unfair in hindsight.
Lindh converted to Islam as a teenager and studied Arabic in Yemen and Pakistan before going to Afghanistan, where he fought for the Taliban before and after Sept. 11, 2001, until his unit surrendered to Northern Alliance forces in November of 2001. He had faced charges that could have sent him to prison for life, including conspiring to kill Americans abroad, but pleaded guilty in July 2002 to one count of providing services to the Taliban and one count of carrying explosives during a felony.
“John did not go to Afghanistan to fight against America,” his mother said Wednesday. “He never fought against America. John has spoken out strongly against terrorism in any form. We hope President Bush will respond today with sympathy and compassion as he did in December 2001.” Frank Lindh said his son’s plea bargain at the time seemed like the best fate for which he could hope, but he was “wrongly accused” of opposing America. “We love our son very much,” Frank Lindh said. “… We wish that John could be home with us in nine months time as well.”
Lindh’s parents said they last saw their son in December because he was moved Feb. 1 from the federal prison at Victorville to the “Supermax” maximum-security at Florence, Colo. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ Web site says the Colorado prison is for “offenders requiring the tightest controls (e.g., the most violent)”, other inmates include “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, but Brosnahan said Wednesday that Lindh has been “a model prisoner.”
“I don’t know why they would move John there,” he said. The Bureau of Prisons won’t comment on reasons for an inmate’s transfer, a spokeswoman said. Brosnahan also cited the case of Yaser Hamdi, a U.S. citizen imprisoned after serving with the Taliban’s army; he was released in September 2004.