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CHICAGO (AP) — A 29-year-old Illinois man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has been arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse, officials said Thursday. Michael C. Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested Wednesday and charged in a criminal complaint with one count of attempting to murder federal officers or employees and trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. Federal officials said the case has no connections with the major terrorism investigation under way in Colorado and New York. "This alleged plot drives home...

INDIANAPOLIS — Two Muslim inmates held in a special unit at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute say they aren’t allowed to pray in groups as often as their religion commands and have asked a federal judge to ease limitations on worship imposed by the Bureau of Prisons. The prison in western Indiana houses several high-security inmates, including American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding Afghanistan’s now-defunct Taliban government. The June 16 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenges limits on Islamic worship in the prison’s restrictive Communications Management...

Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe. All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque. The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad...

Prison officials are easing restrictions on John Walker Lindh, the Californian captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who became known as the "American Taliban," according to government documents...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 hand grenades onto the battlefield in Afghanistan, where radicals fought the Northern Alliance aligned with U.S. forces..... Lindh's relatives depicted him as a...

Tony West was “American Taliban” terrorist John Walker Lindh’s defense lawyer On March 9, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on one of Barack Obama’s latest nominees. This time it was to assess the suitability of Tony West, Obama’s nominee for the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Division. Things went “smoothly” according to the San Jose Mercury News, also publishing a nice bio of West. The Washington Post merely mentioned the hearing was “notable.” Similarly the East Bay Express simply makes mention of the hearing having occurred. Apparently there was nothing of...

Tony West, a high-powered San Francisco lawyer whose clients have ranged from corporate giants to "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, has been nominated by President Obama as an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Division. West, 43, an Oakland resident, met Obama in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention and was one of his finance co-chairs in California last year, when the campaign raised a record $65 million in the state. A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School, West worked as a Justice Department attorney under President Bill Clinton, a federal prosecutor in San...

If it's December, it's time for the left to throw another shameless pity party for convicted American jihadist John Walker Lindh (aka Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid). Every Christmas season for the past four years, the Taliban accomplice and his parents have asked President Bush to pardon him. This country should save its tears and mercy for the defenders of freedom. The farther we move from the September 11 attacks, the cloudier our collective memory of Lindh's case becomes. Sympathetic journalists have rewritten the history, embracing him as a naive young hippie-dippie from Marin County, Calif., who was just caught...

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- The parents of American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh are asking President George W. Bush to set their son free before Bush leaves office next month.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Some high-profile convicts past and present are among more than 2,000 people asking President George W. Bush to pardon them or commute their prison sentences before he leaves office. Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh have applied to the Justice Department seeking official forgiveness.

He's a gentle man, lean and soft-spoken, careful to begin his lecture with an explanation of principles like the right to counsel. The passion in Frank Lindh builds only when he describes the details of what happened to his son, John Walker Lindh, the bearded young man who was tagged as the American Taliban. In the waning days of George Bush's administration, the senior Lindh is asking the president to commute the rest of his son's 20-year sentence, now seven years along. It's almost certainly a hopeless quest. Bush is not a man prone to second-guess himself. ... In retrospect,...

The father of John Walker Lindh, who has spent nearly seven years in federal prison for serving in an Afghan army, told a room full of law students at University of San Francisco on Wednesday his son has been used as a scapegoat for the faults of the U.S. government. Frank Lindh of Marin County spoke for the fourth consecutive year about how he believes U.S. troops in northern Afghanistan in 2001 illegitimately captured his son, known as an "American Taliban," for fighting as a Taliban soldier just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Frank Lindh said he believes his son...

<p>The media furor surrounding Marin County's "American Taliban" has turned into a full-fledged frenzy, with cash being waved about as if it were a Hollywood production . . . which it may well become.</p> <p>John Walker's family has been besieged almost from day one by book and movie offers, sources say. And even Chronicle reporters covering the story have been queried by agents looking to do a deal.</p>

All red-blooded Americans hate the Taliban. But what did red-blooded Americans think of the Taliban seven months ago? That's about when John Walker, 20-year-old American citizen, disappeared from sight until he surfaced earlier this month in a prisoner-of-war camp for Taliban fighters. Now many Americans want Walker tried, punished, executed . . . nothing is too terrible to say about, or contemplate doing to, this traitor who abandoned his country and joined up with that incarnation of evil, that rats' nest of anti-Americanism, that oppressor of women, that harborer of terrorists: the Taliban. All this about the Taliban was about ...

Felons Seeking Bush Pardon Near a Record By CHARLIE SAVAGE WASHINGTON — Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests. Among the petitioners is Michael Milken, the billionaire former junk bond king turned philanthropist, who is seeking a pardon for his 1990 conviction for securities fraud, the Justice Department said. Mr. Milken sought a pardon eight years ago from President Bill Clinton, and submitted a new petition in June. In addition, prominent federal inmates are...

War On Terror: After 9/11, Pakistan promised to close its radical madrassas as part of anti-terror reforms. Now we learn they're not only still open, but also recruiting and brainwashing American boys.All told, 600 American children are being indoctrinated into jihad in 22 madrassas across Pakistan. A U.S. filmmaker stumbled on them while tracing the path of the London suicide bombers. He discovered they attended the same radical Islamic schools. A congressional delegation has confirmed his findings. One particularly radical school in Karachi freely displays a banner at its main gate urging Muslims to join the Taliban. At least 80...

John Walker Lindh's lawyers and parents appealed to President Bush for the fourth time Tuesday to commute the Marin County man's 20-year prison sentence for aiding the Taliban in 2001, saying the nation has grown less fearful since then and that others convicted of similar charges have been treated more leniently. "John Lindh had no involvement whatsoever in terrorism or criminal activity," his mother, Marilyn Walker, said at a news conference.... "Others have received a lot less in the way of a sentence even when they were convicted of a lot more," the lawyer said. Bush has not responded to...

Hoping a new attorney general will be more sympathetic to their cause, John Walker Lindh's parents again asked the White House to commute the sentence of the Marin County man who fought in Afghanistan for the Taliban. The family filed a petition today asking that Lindh's 20-year sentence be commuted. Lindh pleaded guilty in 2002 to providing services to the Taliban and carrying explosives during a felony. His attorneys first applied for a commutation in 2004, and have regularly beseeched the government since then to shorten Lindh's sentence. "We hope that President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush will find...

Parents of captured American Talib 'have been given no word of him' The parents of Talib John Walker say the US government has not given them any word about his condition or whereabouts. The Californian was taken into custody nearly a week ago after a bloody prison uprising in northern Afghanistan. Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker say they are "desperately worried" about their son. Attorney James Brosnahan says he has sent a fax to the US Department of Defence seeking information on Walker's whereabouts, and also contacted the US State Department. Neither agency provided information, he says. "John's parents ...

<p>Were the story of John Walker Lindh not so horribly real, it could play as a parody of our times. Mr. Walker, a 20-year-old American, goes to war in Afghanistan. Except he fights not for America, but against us, on the side of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. By the time he's captured, AK-47 in hand, Mr. Walker is filthy, wounded and famished, but to a persistent reporter from Newsweek he manages to gasp out his support for the Islamic terrorist attacks that, out of a clear blue sky, killed more than 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11.</p>

Reading all these articles and hearing all these pundits talk about Johnny Bin Walker as being treasonous and being the lowest thing on earth has made me wonder. First, how can it be treason when he is no longer a citizen. Second, although I think the guy should be killed, he gets more respect from me for having the guts to go over their and live up to his anti-American sentiments, than do these cowardly America haters over here that still enjoy the benefits of being an American citizen. How many times have we told these creeps that if they ...

What should America do with John Walker Lindh, its 20-year-old former Californian who converted to Islam and became a Taliban foot soldier? As a citizen, he's ineligible for trial before an American military tribunal. Yet proving him guilty of treason in a civilian court would be tough because he joined the Taliban well before Sept. 11 and played no role in the attacks on this country. He could always claim that his goal was merely to fight the Northern Alliance, not the U.S. Yet Lindh is clearly an enemy of America. He trained in al-Qaida terrorist camps and he's voiced ...

ONGMONT, Colo., Dec. 6 — If John Walker Lindh's fate were in the hands of many people here, he might well be headed for execution, life in prison or any other penalty suffered by turncoats. "He's a traitor," said Ted Gaines, a Vietnam veteran who works at Grandpa's Pawn Shop. "He should be prosecuted as a traitor. He was fighting with our enemy. He was fighting with terrorists." Rod Brandenburg, the shop's owner, agreed. "I have no sympathy for him whatsoever." Those views reflect the degree to which many residents of Longmont, a fast-growing but still conservative community of 71,000 ...

Dec. 6 — Last week, just hours before Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners began their uprising at the Northern Afghan fortress of Kala Jangi, CIA agents interviewed John Walker, the 20-year-old American from northern California, NEWSWEEK has learned. The interrogation, which took place shortly before one of the agents was killed, was videotaped by an Afghan cameraman. THE TAPE REPRESENTS the first evidence that the CIA knew that there was an American, or at least a Westerner among the hundreds of prisoners. It also demonstrates that Walker came into contact with the U.S. agents; last week, he told NEWSWEEK ...

JOHN WALKER HAS TO PAY December 7, 2001 -- Americans are right to be mad as hell about the discovery of one of their own among a gaggle of captured Taliban fighters. John Walker may be a mixed-up "young man," as his father says. And clearly he was in the wrong place at the wrong time - doing the wrong thing. That is, bearing arms against other young Americans. For this he must pay. Dearly. And because he might have taken part in the treacherous killing of CIA agent Johnny Michael Spann. And because treating him leniently could make it ...

<p>In all worlds but the liberal one, adult choices have adult consequences.</p> <p>An American Talib from Marin County? Named for John Lennon; the son of a Catholic father and a mother who embraced Buddhism; a graduate of an alternative high school who converted to Islam after reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"?</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann reportedly questioned fellow American and alleged Taliban warrior John Walker shortly before the Afghan prisoner uprising in which Spann was killed. Newsweek magazine said on its Web site Thursday the information came from a videotape of the incident taken by an Afghan cameraman. Spann, 32, was killed Nov. 25 after he questioned Walker, 20, of northern California, and other enemy captives who were imprisoned in the northern Afghanistan fortress of Kala Jangi. The prisoners were taken as the northern alliance, under cover of punishing U.S. airstrikes, finally overran the city of ...

James Brosnahan, attorney for Hillary Clinton's disgraced sugar daddy Norman Hsu, has not just defended Marin's Taliban warrior John Walker Lindh. Brosnahan is also a big Democrat party donor. Contribution records from the Center for Responsive Politics' website OpenSecrets.org show Brosnahan has contributed in excess of $80,000 to Democrat candidates since 1989. $86,550 to be exact. His most recent contribution was $10,000 to the Democrat Congressional Campaign on June 29th of this year. He also contributed $2,300 to Barack Hussein Obama on March 19, 2007. There are two other big money contributions; another $10,000 to the Democrat Congressional Campaign in...

James J. BrosnahanSenior Partner Primary Office: San Francisco Email: jbrosnahan@mofo.com Phone: (415) 268-7189 Fax: (415) 268-7522 Download vCard James J. Brosnahan is one of the nation's most respected and recognized trial lawyers, with expertise in both civil and criminal trial work. He was inducted into The State Bar of California's "Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame" in April 1996; was awarded the "Samuel E. Gates Award" by the American College of Trial Lawyers in October 2000; was named the "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by the American Board of Trial Advocates in October 2001; was named "Legend of the Law" by...

Wednesday December 05 03:39 AM EST JUST CALL HIM BY HIS RIGHTFUL NAME: TRAITORBy ANDREA PEYSER WHY is it so hard for our leaders to call the snake who is John Walker what he so obviously is - a despicable traitor? A despicable traitor who deserves to be shot. Or is it just me? Four years ago, the California teen who then answered to the name John Walker picked up the Koran in one hand, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" in the other, changed his name to Abdul Hamid, grew a beard, donned a skirt, and dreamed of killing Americans ...

Thousands of misty-eyed coeds from Brooklyn Heights to Berkeley are no doubt sniffling into their burqas today. From East Hampton to West Bum****, America-hating Volvo environmentalists and armchair activists are no doubt furiously forwarding e-mails, painting signs and passing petitions protesting the capture of American John Walker, the wretched, dirty traitor who was nabbed fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Lo, can you hear them? Can you see those bespectacled waifs with poor iron counts and "Milk is Murder" t-shirts, trembling with unexpressed erotic urgings at the CNN clip of the injured Walker's smudged face, concave chest and soulful eyes? ...

The concept of mercy spans testaments and faiths, and any system of justice requires the embrace of mercy for leavening and legitimacy. In this case, justice has been served by Lindh's time in prison. Now Bush is uniquely positioned to grant mercy, for while many will long argue over the effectiveness of his war on terror, none question his commitment to it. By giving Lindh a commutation, Bush could prove that his war is, as he often and properly asserts, not against Islam but against those who seek to harm America. Lindh never sought to harm his country; he has...

Lindh Moved to Supermax Prison in Colorado Thursday, April 12, 2007 (04-12) 16:19 PDT Florence, Colo. (AP) -- John Walker Lindh, serving a 20-year sentence after fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, has been transferred to Supermax, the federal government's most secure prison, authorities said Thursday. Lindh was moved to the facility about 90 miles south of Denver in February for security reasons, said Isidro Garcia, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Garcia said he had no other information. Lindh's transfer was first reported on Newsweek.com. He had been held at a medium-security federal penitentiary in Victorville, Calif....

SAN FRANCISCO -- The lawyer and parents of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh asked President Bush to commute his 20-year prison term, citing the case of an Australian man who was sentenced to less than a year for aiding terrorism.

How can anyone be a bystander while someone is stabbed? By Mark Steyn (Filed: 13/09/2003) On September 11, 2001, the first individual to be named among the dead was the wife of the US Solicitor-General, Barbara Olson, whom I'd sat next to at dinner a couple of months earlier. On September 11, 2003, I woke to the news of the death of the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, whom I also sat next to a couple of months ago, at a conference. I can't claim anything other than the most casual acquaintance with either lady, but even an accidental proximity...

More TK...

Excerpt - Don't blame Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, her new lawyer said Wednesday, for the convulsions the company's board have suffered in the wake of its troubled investigation of boardroom leaks. "She's neither a lawyer nor is she an investigator," said James Brosnahan, the Morrison & Foerster litigator whom Dunn hired this week. "And she's not the kind of person, frankly, who would advise people to do something illegal." Dunn has come under scrutiny for her role in directing the troubled probe -- The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she closely supervised it -- and she's the latest figure...

Frank Lindh, the father of a man now serving 20 years in prison for “aiding” Taliban forces, will speak to CU-Boulder students on matters of human and constitutional rights Tuesday, Sept. 19 at Museum Collections W100 at 7:30 p.m. John Walker Lindh was apprehended November of 2001, and on Feb. 5, 2002 he faced 10 charges, including conspiracy to murder Americans. As part of a plea-bargain deal, John pled guilty to possession of weapons and serving the Taliban army. As a result, all other charges were dropped. John is currently serving a sentence of 20 years without the possibility of...

TRUTH in the David Hicks affair remains as elusive as ever after fresh allegations this week from inside the US military that the Guantanamo Bay commissions are so seriously flawed that a fair trial is impossible. The most damaging blows yet to the commissions -- still supported by the Howard Government -- came from three US Air Force prosecutors involved in the trials who have quit the investigation in protest. One, John Carr, said the process appeared to have been rigged and that the first four cases -- including Hicks -- had been been "handpicked" and would not be acquitted....

I bring you my boo-freakin'-hoo moment of the day, courtesy of Esquire writer Tom Junod's nauseating profile of John Walker Lindh a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris" a/k/a "Abdul Hamid a/k/a "Hamza." Junod laments an order forbidding Lindh/al-Faris/Hamid/Hamza from speaking Arabic and describes his typical day in prison: At seven o'clock in the morning he goes to work in the library. It is not a job that most other inmates want, but it suits Hamza, because all Hamza does is read and study. He reads and studies so much that people have to stop him from reading and studying, and sometimes his only...

The new Malcolm X? By Philip Sherwell (Filed: 09/04/2006) The Federal Correctional Complex on the edge of the southern Californian town of Victorville is a grim, inhospitable place. Its squat concrete blocks are surrounded first by walls and barbed wire fences and then by the scrubby expanse of the Mojave Desert. The prison sits just off Route 66, the highway where Nat King Cole famously invited travellers to "get your kicks". But this stretch of the road, lined by ugly cement factories and crumbling wooden shacks, could not be further from its romantic image. Converted: John Walker Lindh It is...

MSNBC just reported that we have had the first American Special Ops casualty in the revolt by the Taleban prisoners that were taken from Kunduz to Mazar-i Sharif.

American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has asked President Bush again to reduce his 20-year prison sentence by an unspecified amount, Lindh's attorney said Tuesday. Lindh, now in his early 20s, wrote a first-person account to the Justice Department's pardon attorneys arguing why he believes Bush should reduce his sentence. Lindh's attorney said the document could not be publicly released under U.S. government restrictions intended to prevent Lindh from disclosing national secrets. Lindh, a native of Marin County, Calif., who is now imprisoned in southern California, was captured in Afghanistan weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He pleaded...

Last week, John Walker Lindh  petitioned the president to commute his 20-year sentence for fighting with the Taliban, imposed in 2002.  It’s a shame that this pampered child of Marin County is sitting in a cell for something as trivial as treason. Under a plea bargain, Walker Lindh (AKA: Abdul Hamid, AKA: Sulayman Al-Lindh) pleaded guilty to supplying services to the Taliban regime and carrying explosives for  Afghanistan’s former rulers.Which is like to saying that Benedict Arnold supplied services to George III. Johnny Jihad trained in an al-Qaeda camp – where he learned to fire an AK-47 and rubbed elbows...

Frank Lindh, the gay father of John Walker Lindh, dubbed the "American Taliban" after being found in Afghanistan in late 2001, lashed out at the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington during a fiery, and at times, emotional speech before the Commonwealth Club last week. Breaking a self-imposed silence about his son's case, Lindh gave the speech in order to reach out to the American public, which he said has been brainwashed by lawmakers, government officials, and sensational news coverage into thinking his son is a traitor to his country and an ally of...

Frank Lindh is on a campaign to gain clemency for his son, John Walker Lindh, a.k.a Johnny Jihad or (my favorite nickname, courtesy of Michael Savage) Ratboy. And he has the Marin Independent Journal giving him a helping hand. It all started in November, when the IJ ran a front page feature on the traitor by Beth Ashley, the Lifestyles writer. Her article told how Ratboy was bound by duct tape to a stretcher, with a bullet wound which remained untreated for a couple of days. Her story also contained discussions with his lawyers, who are trying to get the...

'American Taliban' Father Urges Clemency Jan 19 5:33 PM US/Eastern By MARTHA MENDOZA AP National Writer SAN FRANCISCO After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh said Thursday he has asked President Bush to grant his son clemency, adding that the then teenager never raised arms against the United States. "In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest," said Frank Lindh, swallowing back tears at times during a speech at the Commonwealth Club, a nonprofit organization. John Walker Lindh, now 24, was captured by...

After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh said Thursday he has asked President Bush to grant his son clemency, adding that the then teenager never raised arms against the United States. "In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man embarked on a spiritual quest," said Frank Lindh, swallowing back tears at times during a speech at the Commonwealth Club, a nonprofit organization. John Walker Lindh, now 24, was captured by American forces on Nov. 21, 2001, alongside the Taliban. Frank Lindh said his son thought he had been...

Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid, aka John Walker Lindh, is asking for mercy. Via the San Francisco Chronicle: American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has asked President Bush again to reduce his 20-year prison sentence by an unspecified amount, Lindh's attorney said Tuesday. Lindh, now in his early 20s, wrote a first-person account to the Justice Department's pardon attorneys arguing why he believes Bush should reduce his sentence. Lindh's attorney said the document could not be publicly released under U.S. government restrictions intended to prevent Lindh from disclosing national secrets. National secrets? Don't worry. The New York Times will no...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Army investigators concluded that soldiers who photographed American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in captivity in Afghanistan with an obscenity written on his blindfold were guilty of "barracks humor" but not intentional wrongdoing, according to documents released Tuesday. The investigators also found no evidence to support allegations that members of the 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., intentionally destroyed evidence or impeded a Justice Department investigation of the wartime treatment of Lindh, who denies having fought against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Lindh, a California native now in his early 20s, was captured in Mazar-e-Sharif...

After months of legal wrangling, the Swedish Supreme Court today overturned an appeals court ruling and said the convicted and confessed killer of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh will serve his sentence in prison. The decision by the five-judge panel overturned an appeals court ruling earlier this year that said Mijailo Mijailovic would be confined to a mental hospital for the September 2003 stabbing death of Lindh. The Supreme Court’s decision is final, and there is no avenue for more appeals. Mikael Nilsson, Mijailovic’s lawyer, said he would try to have his client transferred to Serbia-Montenegro to serve out his sentence....