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Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the American who fought with the Taliban, claim he was systematically brutalised and threatened with 'torture and death' after US troops seized him. The claims come as his lawyers prepare to argue that he was a soldier of the Taliban, not an anti-US terrorist. At the centre of his defence will be his claim that the witness statement he provided to his FBI interrogators was given under duress and in the hope of ending his mistreatment. Lindh is being tried in an ordinary court and will not face the death penalty, unlike foreign prisoners, who...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - As U.S. troops transferred him to a metal prison container at a primitive base in Afghanistan, captured Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh pleaded, "Please don't kill me," a defense motion says. Lindh was told by a Marine to shut up, a response delivered with an expletive, according to the motion filed Thursday. The defense motion was based on information provided to the government by military guards, and then turned over to the defense under a court order. The defense team wants to subpoena the Marine guard who heard Lindh's comment, along with other U.S. military and...

HASSANI KALAN SURANI, Pakistan (AP) - During his six months of study at an Islamic school here, John Walker Lindh expressed admiration for the Taliban and even talked of taking four wives as permitted under Islam, according to those who knew him. Lindh, known here by his Muslim name, Sulayman al-Faris, is remembered in this Pakistani village 165 miles southwest of Islamabad as a kind and earnest young man devoted to his religious studies. But, according to the recollections of some here, Lindh showed the telltale signs of militancy and even shared some of the radical Taliban interpretations of his ...

<p>December 4, 2001 -- The year 1997 was a critical turning point for high-school student John Walker. That's when he read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," began wearing a white robe and turban, and changed his name.</p> <p>The conversion of John Phillip Walker Lindh from California teenager to grimy Taliban fighter and U.S. prisoner of war can be traced to the year he spent cramming for his high-school diploma at an alternative independent school in the San Francisco Bay area.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- John Walker Lindh's parents had the first word in the battle to shape his image, calling him a "good kid," releasing cute family pictures and suggesting he was brainwashed by the Taliban.</p> <p>The government painted a far darker picture based on his interviews with the FBI in Afghanistan, where he was captured in November. Attorney General John Ashcroft suggested Lindh alone decided to take up arms with the Taliban against the United States.</p>