Lindh Defense Urges Access to Detainees

Lawyers for John Walker Lindh pressed their case Friday for interviews with detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said they have received critical information that the young Northern Californian never turned his rifle against U.S. military troops before his capture in Afghanistan.

The defense team wants to visit with numerous detainees to learn more about what Lindh was doing while fighting for the Taliban.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., where Lindh is to stand trial in August, is likely to rule Tuesday on whether the defense will be granted access to the detainees.

The government has maintained that security concerns and other factors make it ill-advised for outside parties to speak with the detainees. But in court papers Friday, the Lindh defense team said that representatives from other countries have visited with some of the detainees.

Lindh’s lawyers also said U.S. government reports turned over to the defense show that many detainees have said he was not soldiering against the United States, and he would have left the Taliban army but feared for his life.

“The government has now produced 24 FBI reports of interviews with Guantanamo detainees that it admits provide material and exculpatory information” beneficial to Lindh, the defense lawyers said.

The lawyers said the government reports show that Lindh was not fighting against U.S. troops when he was captured during a prison riot at the Qala-i-Janghi fort in Afghanistan, where CIA agent Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed.

“When the uprising began, Mr. Lindh was sitting on the [fort’s] lawn with his arms bound behind him,” the lawyers said. “And as soon as the uprising began, Mr. Lindh was shot by Northern Alliance guards.”

The lawyers also said that some of the detainees attended the same training camp in Afghanistan as Lindh and that they have insisted it was for military schooling.

“The testimony of these witnesses is highly important to corroborate that, contrary to government assertions, the training at that camp was solely military and not terrorist.”

Defense lawyers also said that detainees have claimed there was “no way to safely leave” Afghanistan during the war.

One prisoner, identified only as “DT-24,” said that after the Sept. 11 attacks, “he wanted to leave the front line and return home but could not get out of Afghanistan because everything was closed down and bombs were being dropped everywhere.”