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John Walker Lindh

John Philip Walker Lindh (born February 9, 1981) is an American Taliban member who was captured by United States forces as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress, used as a prison. He denied participating[1] in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners, stating that he was wounded in the leg and hid in the cellar of the Pink House, in the southern half of the fort. He was one of the 86 prisoners who survived the uprising, from an estimated 400 prisoners in total. CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed during that uprising.[2] Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002, Lindh accepted a plea bargain; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on supervision on May 23, 2019, for a three-year period of supervised release.[3]

John Walker Lindh

John Philip Walker Lindh

(1981-02-09) February 9, 1981
Washington, D.C., US

Sulayman al-Faris, Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi, Yahya

Taliban member

Released (After Supervision ended May 23, 2022)

Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh

20 years imprisonment

A convert to Sunni Islam in California at age 16, Lindh traveled to Yemen in 1998 to study Arabic and stayed there for 10 months. He later returned in 2000, then went to Afghanistan to aid the Taliban in fighting against the Afghan Northern Alliance. He received training at Al-Farouq, a training camp associated with al-Qaeda, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries. While at the camp, he attended a lecture by Osama bin Laden. After the 9/11 attacks, he remained with the Taliban military forces despite learning that the U.S. had become allied with the Northern Alliance. Lindh had previously received training with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, an internationally designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan.[4][5][6][7]


Lindh went by the name Sulayman al-Faris during his time in Afghanistan, but prefers the name Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi today.[8] In early reports following his capture, when the press learned that he was a US citizen, he was usually referred to by the news media as just "John Walker".[9]

Youth, conversion, and travels[edit]

Lindh was born in Washington, D.C., to Marilyn Walker and Frank R. Lindh, as the middle of three children in the family.[10] He was named "John" after John Lennon, who was murdered two months before Lindh's birth.[11] He was baptized a Catholic,[12] and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to San Anselmo, California.[9] Lindh suffered from an intestinal disorder as a child. At age 14, his health improved. He enrolled at Redwood High School as a freshman. He then transferred to Tamiscal High School in the Tamalpais Union High School District, an alternative school offering self-directed, individualized study programs. While there, he studied world culture, including Sunni Islam and the Middle East.[9] Lindh dropped out of the school and eventually earned an equivalent of a high school diploma by passing the California High School Proficiency Exam at age 16.


As an adolescent, Lindh participated in IRC chatrooms with the IRC nickname Mujahid. He became a devoted fan of hip-hop music and engaged in extensive discussions on Usenet newsgroups, sometimes pretending to be an African American rapper who would criticize others for "acting black."[13][14] Spike Lee's film Malcolm X impressed him deeply and sparked his interest in Islam.[12]


Although his parents did not divorce until 1999, their marriage was in serious trouble throughout Lindh's adolescence. His father often left their Marin residence for extended periods to live in San Francisco with a male lover.[15][16] Frank Lindh said he and Marilyn had been separated since 1997.[17]


In 1997, at the age of 16, Lindh converted to Islam. He began regularly attending mosques in Mill Valley and later in nearby San Francisco.[18] In 1998, Lindh traveled to Yemen and stayed for about 10 months to learn Arabic so that he could read the Qur'an in its original language. He returned to the United States in 1999, living with his family for about eight months.


Lindh returned to Yemen in February 2000 and left for Pakistan to study at a madrasa. While abroad, Lindh exchanged numerous emails with his family. In one, his father told him about the USS Cole bombing, to which Lindh replied that the American naval destroyers being in the Yemen harbor had been an act of war, and that the bombing was justified. "This raised my concerns," his father told Newsweek, "but my days of molding him were over."[19]


At the age of 20, Lindh decided to travel to Afghanistan to fight for the Afghan Taliban government forces against Northern Alliance fighters.[20] His parents said that he was moved by stories of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Northern Alliance army against civilians. He traveled to Afghanistan in May 2001.[21] Tony West, his lawyer, explained it as follows: "One of the first things he told Army interrogators when they questioned him on December 3, 2001, was that after 9/11 happened, he wanted to leave the front lines but couldn't for fear of his life. John never wanted to be in a position where he was opposing the United States (and never thought he would be), and in fact he never opposed any American military."[22]

to murder US citizens or nationals

Conspiracy

Two counts of

providing material support and resources to terrorist organizations

One count of supplying services to the Taliban

Conspiracy to contribute services to Al Qaeda

Contributing services to Al Qaeda

Conspiracy to supply services to the Taliban

Using and carrying firearms and destructive devices during crimes of violence

On February 5, 2002, Lindh was indicted by a federal grand jury on ten charges:[43]


If convicted of these charges, Lindh could have received up to three life sentences and 90 additional years in prison. On February 13, 2002, he pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges.[43] The court scheduled an evidence suppression hearing, at which Lindh would have been able to testify about the details of the torture to which he claimed he was subjected. The government faced the problem that a key piece of evidence – Lindh's confession – might be excluded from evidence as having been coerced.


Michael Chertoff, then-head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, then directed the prosecutors to offer Lindh a plea bargain. Lindh could plead guilty to two charges: supplying services to the Taliban (50 U.S.C. § 1705(b), 18 U.S.C. § 2, 31 CFR 545.204, and 31 CFR 545.206) and carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony (18 U.S.C. § 844(h)(2)). He would have to consent to a gag order that would prevent him from making any public statements on the matter for the duration of his 20-year sentence, and he would have to drop any claims that he had been mistreated or tortured by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan and aboard two military ships during December 2001 and January 2002. In return, all other charges would be dropped. The gag order was said to be at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.[12]


Lindh accepted this offer. On July 15, 2002, he entered his plea of guilty to the two remaining charges. The judge asked Lindh to say, in his own words, what he was admitting to: "I plead guilty. I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to December. In the course of doing so, I carried a rifle and two grenades. I did so knowingly and willingly knowing that it was illegal." Lindh said that he "went to Afghanistan with the intention of fighting against terrorism and oppression", fighting for the suffering of ordinary people at the hands of the Northern Alliance.[12] On October 4, 2002, Judge T.S. Ellis III imposed a sentence of 20 years in federal prison.[44]


Some activists and academics called for Lindh to tell his story.[45] The government invoked the Son of Sam law and informed Lindh that any and all profits made from book deals or any movies about Lindh's experience would be automatically transferred to the federal government. Lindh, his family, his relatives, his associates and his friends will be unable to profit financially from his crimes and/or experiences. Lindh's attorney, James Brosnahan, said Lindh would be eligible for release in 17 years, with good behavior. Lindh agreed to cooperate "fully, truthfully and completely" with both military intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the terrorism investigation.[46]

Imprisonment[edit]

In January 2003, Lindh was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary, Victorville, a high-security facility northeast of Los Angeles.[47] On March 3, 2003, Lindh was tackled by inmate Richard Dale Morrison. He assaulted Lindh at prayer, causing bruises on his forehead. On July 2, 2003, Morrison was charged with a misdemeanor count of assault.[48]


Lindh was held in Federal Supermax ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado for a short time. He served his sentence as prisoner 45426-083,[49] at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana in the Communication Management Unit.[50][51]


In April 2007, citing the reduced sentence for the Australian prisoner David Matthew Hicks, Lindh's attorneys made a public plea for a Presidential commutation to lessen his 20-year sentence. In January 2009, the Lindh family's petition for clemency was denied by President George W. Bush in one of his final acts in office. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, all "special administrative measures" in place against Lindh expired on March 20, 2009, as part of a gradual easing of restrictions on him.[52][53]


In 2010, Lindh and the Syrian-American prisoner Enaam Arnaout sued to lift restrictions on group prayer by Muslim inmates in the Communication Management Unit.[50] On January 11, 2013, a federal judge ruled in their favor, saying that the government had shown no compelling interest in restricting the religious speech of the inmates by prohibiting them from praying together.[53][54]


In February 2015, Lindh wrote to a California television producer,[55] expressing support for ISIS or the Islamic State, the militant group that had recently beheaded five Westerners in televised executions. Asked if he supported the Islamic State, Lindh, now calling himself "Yahya", Arabic for John, replied in a handwritten letter: "Yes, and they are doing a spectacular job. The Islamic State is clearly very sincere and serious about fulfilling the long-neglected religious obligation of establishing a caliphate through armed struggle, which is the only correct method".[56]


In 2017 Foreign Policy magazine reported an internal report by the National Counterterrorism Center asserted Lindh told a visiting television news producer that he had not renounced extremist violence.[53] Lindh was interviewed for the 2016 book The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With the Islamic State by Graeme Wood, on the condition that Wood provide Lindh with "books, treatises, articles, or other writings produced by leaders of the Islamic State and/or scholars affiliated with it (preferably in the original Arabic)." Upon sending the package of literature was blocked from delivery by the prison as it was deemed contraband, however Lindh decided to continue corresponding with Wood, though Lindh later ended the correspondence by saying he was personally a "layman" whose opinions had "no consequence", referring to his knowledge of the Islamic State.[57]


Lindh secured Irish citizenship in 2013 through his paternal grandmother, Kathleen Maguire, who was born in Donegal.[53]

Release[edit]

On May 23, 2019, Lindh was released early for good behavior from the Terre Haute, Indiana federal prison prior to the end of his twenty-year sentence, although he accepted several probation requirements due to his continued support of Islamist ideology.[3] These requirements included a ban from internet use and contact with fellow extremists.[57] The probation lasted for the remaining three years of his sentence.[58][1] President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were among many who criticized the release, but Trump said "From a legal standpoint, there's nothing we're allowed to do".[59]

In a documentary, Taliban Uprising, the only video of Lindh speaking since his capture is shown.[28]

National Geographic

The documentary Good Morning, Afghanistan by Damien Degueldre features the Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif, where John Walker was being held and later transferred by the Northern Alliance to US Special Forces Operatives.

and Anticon recorded the song "Song for John Walker" for the 2002 album The Message at the Depth.

DJ Krush

The 2003 book "My Heart Became Attached" by Mark Kukis was a biography of John Walker Lindh, tracing his life from childhood to radicalization to prison

[60]

A musical interpretation of John Walker Lindh's story was staged in 2004 by Jean Strong and John McCloskey at the New York International Fringe Festival

[61]

recorded a song about Lindh titled "John Walker's Blues". It was released on his 2002 album Jerusalem.[62]

Steve Earle

The band Hot Buttered Rum wrote and recorded The Trial Of John Walker Lindh for their 2002 album Live at the Freight and Salvage.

progressive bluegrass

The premiere of the police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order is based on the Lindh case.

13th-season

A novel by entitled American Taliban (2010) is based on Lindh.

Pearl Abraham

In episode seven of the first season of the television series Vince is offered a role in a fictitious movie based on "the John Walker Lindh story".

Entourage

In author 's book Horse Soldiers Lindh is mentioned as one of the Al-Qaeda combatants, then as a prisoner.

Doug Stanton

In the popular philosophy collection Dune and Philosophy, American philosophy expert Shane Ralston defends Lindh's character as "quintessentially American" given the idealism, bravery and religious fervor with which he served the Taliban forces in Afghanistan.[64]

[63]

The Spanish writer Enrique Falcón included a poem titled John Walker Lindh on the book Taberna Roja (2008).

The podcast featured Lindh in an episode titled "The American Taliban".[65]

You're Wrong About

Lindh is initially referred to as "the Irishman" in the 2021 book "First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11" by .

Toby Harnden

released a documentary, Detainee 001, about Lindh's capture and interrogations, in September 2021.[66]

Showtime Networks

Detention of five Americans in Pakistan (Dec. 2009)

Adam Yahiye Gadahn

Yasser Esam Hamdi

Bryant Neal Vinas

The Lindh indictment

on FindLaw

Case History: U.S. v. Lindh

– Advocacy website.

Free John Walker Lindh

"The Real Story of John Walker Lindh"

AlterNet

by Johnny Spann, HonorMikeSpann.com, February 1, 2006. (PDF file) – Response by Mike Spann's father.

"False and misleading statements by Mr. Frank Lindh omits many known facts: Article of appeal"

– 2013 Frank Lindh interview on The Peter B. Collins Show.

"The Real Story of John Walker Lindh"

by Frank Lindh, in The Guardian, July 10, 2011

"America's 'detainee 001' – the persecution of John Walker Lindh"