Prison Restrictions on 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh Loosened

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

Prison officials are easing restrictions on John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who became known as the "American Taliban," according to government documents.

Among other changes, officials are expanding the number of people who can contact Lindh, who is serving a 20-year prison term without possibility of parole in a medium security prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

Lindh pleaded guilty more than six years ago to charges of supporting the Taliban and carrying a rifle and two handguns onto the battlefield in Afghanistan, where radicals fought the Northern Alliance, an Afghan group allied with U.S. forces, on the front lines there.

In late 2001, images of a dirty, dreadlocked Lindh wounded by a shot to the leg and being carried on a stretcher captivated the public and set off waves of speculation about the first American citizen apprehended while fighting alongside the Taliban after U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031702356.html?hpid=topnews

[coalition_unwilling]

1. Lindh is a political prisoner, definitely denied

assistance of counsel while in captivity and almost certainly tortured by US forces.

His plea deal imposed a gag order, forbidding Lindh from testifying as to the torture he endured while in US military custody at Mazar e Sharif.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. This guy should be released immediately

With an apology.

Twenty fucking years. Preposterous.

[Thothmes]

4. Maybe the current administration

will pardon him.

[John Kerry VonErich]

6. Highly doubt it.

nt

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Usrename]

5. He was in uniform.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit his prosecution.