Release of Lindh again urged

The parents of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence in the country’s toughest federal prison, stepped up their request for his release Wednesday by noting that the first U.S. war crimes tribunal in Guantanamo Bay recently resulted in a sentence of nine months for an Australian detainee held in U.S. custody since late 2001.

“John has been in prison for more than five years,” said his mother, Marilyn Walker. “It’s time for him to come home.”

Lindh’s lead lawyer, James J. Brosnahan of San Francisco, called the effort “a simple cry for justice.”

Lindh, who grew up in Marin County, left the United States when he was 18 to study Islam. In 2001 he was in Afghanistan, serving as a soldier for the Taliban army fighting the Northern Alliance.

Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was taken into custody by U.S. military forces and returned to the United States; the government contended that he had been trained at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp.

He was immediately branded the American Taliban by the tabloids, at a time when many Americans wanted revenge for the terrorist attacks.

In a plea deal with federal prosecutors in 2002, all terrorism charges were dropped. In the end, Lindh pleaded guilty to being a soldier for the Taliban and carrying a rifle and hand grenades while doing so.

At the time, federal prosecutors said they thought the sentence was appropriate, given that Lindh had faced life in prison with no parole if convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Al Qaeda.

Lindh, now 26, is in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo.

His family and lawyers think that with the passage of time, there is a new opportunity to persuade President Bush to reduce the 20-year sentence.

In addition, they said, the ruling last week that Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks of Australia will be freed after serving another nine months has moved them to seek what they consider equal justice.

Hicks was captured about the same time as Lindh in Afghanistan; unlike Lindh, Hicks was convicted of providing material support to terrorists.

“The Hicks result is again evidence that John’s sentence should be commuted,” Brosnahan said.

Lindh’s family began asking Bush for clemency in 2004, when Yaser Esam Hamdi -- a U.S. citizen who was captured in Afghanistan at the same time -- was deported to Saudi Arabia, where his family lives.

Brosnahan said the family and his legal team thought a reduction in Lindh’s sentence was appropriate because of the leniency that others were receiving.

“It’s a matter of fundamental justice,” he said.

Margaret Love, who served as the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997, noted that clemency petitions that cited other cases did not always prevail. She added that Bush, as governor of Texas and as president, has not been one to show mercy for criminal offenders.

“This president has shown very little interest in pardoning,” she said. “And that’s peculiar because that’s the one power that’s really unlimited. He has stretched the other powers of the presidency beyond the breaking point. But this one power that really is all his, with no checks except the popular will, he’s shown very little interest in it.”

She said that under Bush, about 900 pardon requests remained pending, along with thousands of commutation petitions.

Also hurting Lindh’s chances is the death of CIA operative Johnny “Mike” Spann, who was killed in a riot in the Afghan prison where Lindh was being held. His father, Johnny Spann, would have preferred a life sentence and thinks Lindh should at least do 20 years. He said Wednesday that he opposed any commutation of the sentence.

“I would encourage President Bush not to, and I hope to hell he never considers it,” Spann said.

His son’s efforts to question Lindh days before his death were shown worldwide on a CNN video. Spann said those involved in the riot were “guilty of murder. That’s the way I feel about it.”

Nevertheless, Lindh’s parents remain hopeful. They emphasized that their son was repentant and had acknowledged that while he traveled abroad to study Islam, he was too young and naive to understand what the Taliban and other terrorist groups were about.

His father, Frank Lindh, said, “We love our son very much.”

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richard.serrano@latimes.com