Posted on 01/24/2002 5:04:23 AM PST by tdadams
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - His long hair and beard shorn, Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh faced charges in federal court Thursday that he conspired to kill his fellow Americans in the war on terrorism.
U.S. Magistrate Judge W. Curtis Sewell was to read Lindh the charges in a criminal complaint and ensure that he has legal representation. Heavy security surrounded Lindh's arrival at the federal courthouse here, just a few miles from the Pentagon (news - web sites), which was extensively damaged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lindh's parents, Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, who are from the San Francisco area, went to the Alexandria jail Wednesday night with lawyers in hopes of meeting with their son. But they emerged after about a half-hour saying they had been unable to see him.
``We're a little disappointed, but the guard was able to tell us that he is in good condition,'' Lindh said of his son. One of the lawyers, James Brosnahan, said jail authorities felt the meeting should be put off until Thursday.
Brosnahan said the 20-year-old Lindh approved him as a defense lawyer in a letter written while he was a prisoner on a U.S. Navy (news - web sites) ship.
Lindh was captured in November in Afghanistan (news - web sites) after an uprising by Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners. Two years after leaving his country for Yemen to study Arabic and Islam, he was brought under tight secrecy and security to the same jail in Northern Virginia where the only man charged so far in the Sept. 11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, awaits trial on conspiracy charges.
``Mr. Lindh will be well cared for while he's with us,'' Alexandria Sheriff James H. Dunning told CBS's ``The Early Show.''
Lindh will spend 23 hours per day in an 80-square-foot jail cell with ``very limited activities'' and little contact with other inmates, Dunning said. He said the U.S. attorney's office would decide when Lindh could see his parents.
While it has yet to go to a grand jury, the government's case against Lindh so far is built around a criminal complaint based mainly on his interviews with the FBI (news - web sites) on Dec. 9 and 10 and statements he made in a television interview.
Lindh signed a form waiving his right to legal counsel, although defense lawyers already have said they would challenge the statement's admissibility because an attorney wasn't present. Lindh was recovering from a battle wound at the time.
An FBI affidavit said that while Lindh was at an al-Qaida training camp in June, he ``learned from one of his instructors that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) had sent people to the United States to carry out several suicide operations.''
When he learned of the Sept. 11 attacks by radio, Lindh told the FBI, it was his understanding ``that bin Laden had ordered the attacks and that additional attacks would follow.''
Lindh, a Californian who converted to Islam at age 16, said he trained for seven weeks in an al-Qaida camp where bin Laden visited three to five times, giving lectures ``on the local situation, political issues, old Afghan/Soviet battles, etc.''
``On at least one of those occasions, Walker and four other trainees met with bin Laden for approximately five minutes, during which bin Laden thanked them for taking part in jihad (Holy War),'' the affidavit continued.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said Wednesday that President Bush (news - web sites) believes Lindh ``will now get the justice he deserves.'' Fleischer called the criminal charges against Lindh ``extraordinarily serious.''
``He will now have his day in court and he will be judged impartially and fairly,'' Fleischer said.
In an interview aired Wednesday on NBC-TV, Bush said he decided ``for a variety of reasons'' against trying Lindh for treason, adding, ``I also am pleased that he's going to be afforded a chance to make his case in a court of law.''
First lady Laura Bush expressed sympathy for Lindh's parents. ``I'm sure his parents are unbelievably crushed and, you know, worried and sick, everything that every parent feels when their children have a problem like he has,'' she said.
The interview, conducted as part of an NBC special on the Bush White House, was taped prior to Lindh's return from Afghanistan.
I don't hear them say much about: "...., who joined the terrorist al-Qaida network." Anyone else notice that?
But they are saying it.
What's your point?
Laura, quit being such a twit. My parents would be ashamed if one of us did this, and would be out trying to find a suitable length of rope to alleviate the pain, to get it over with so as to preserve their integrity. They would be worried that some lawyer would get us off, and sick for having brought a traitor to term.
Laura, Walker does not have a 'problem,' Walker is a problem.
Well, hell! That's, what, 20' x 40'? That's bigger than my living room, and we nearly spend all our time in there with ``very limited activities''! We'd spend more if it weren't for that darned mortgage payment.
As for violating the fine print on citizenship on a US passport, there are reasons not to take his citizenship based on that that would set up an awkward precedent, I think, in the way we would have to treat other members of al-Qeada.
20' x 40' is 800 square feet, not 80. 80 square feet is roughly 6' x 13'.
That's hilarious. If only justice were that swift!
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