Word: lindh
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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John Walker Lindh appeared in court last week at a brief proceeding called an identity hearing. It was an appropriate name, since deciding who he is will determine whether he should go to prison for the rest of his life. Maybe he is Abdul Hamid, a name he used when he was a Talib, allegedly one who conspired to kill Americans. Or maybe he's John Walker, a suburban '90s kid who lit out for distant territories both geographic and religious, seeking himself (and taking his mother's maiden name) after his parents' estrangement. In his most recent incarnation...
Most likely, he is some indistinct combination of all three. But lawyers often skate over such complexities, and last week the U.S. Department of Justice and Lindh's liberal San Francisco attorney, James Brosnahan, squared off with simpler stories. If the case against Lindh goes to a jury, as Brosnahan predicts, it will turn on which story seems more plausible...
This is what the government says Lindh told an FBI agent in interviews on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, interviews that will provide the bulk of the prosecution's case: after converting to Islam in the late '90s, Lindh traveled to Pakistan to study the religion and learn Arabic. By last June, he had become so passionate about radical Islam that he went to Afghanistan to join the Taliban. Soon he was training at a camp run by al-Qaeda, a group Lindh knew to be "against America...
...quite a summer camp. According to the FBI, young master Lindh took courses in rocket-propelled grenades and battlefield combat. He even allegedly met Osama bin Laden. But when one of bin Laden's lieutenants asked Lindh if he wanted to leave Afghanistan and conduct operations against the U.S., Lindh declined, preferring the front lines of the Taliban's war with the Northern Alliance. A few weeks later, Lindh heard about the events of Sept. 11 on the radio. "According to [Lindh]," an FBI affidavit says, "it was his and his comrades' understanding at the time that bin Laden...
...surprisingly, Brosnahan has a different story, one with this central, oft-repeated theme: Lindh never harmed any American. Brosnahan offers few specifics about what Lindh actually did in Afghanistan. But he says the comments from Lindh's revealing December sessions with the FBI must be ruled inadmissible, since Lindh had asked for a lawyer more than a week before but never got one. Instead the U.S. kept him floating around the Arabian Sea, where the selection of attorneys is quite limited. "Our government is playing with dynamite," Brosnahan told TIME. "[My client] has a right to counsel under the Geneva...