Prosecutors: American didn't join Taliban to assert his rights

By The Associated Press

06.06.02

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — John Walker Lindh joined the Taliban to commit violence rather than to assert his freedom of expression, the government argued yesterday in opposing an effort to dismiss the indictment against him.

The government said joining the Taliban militia was not like joining a political party, and argued the U.S.-born Lindh had no "combat immunity" from criminal prosecution that is granted enemy soldiers fighting for a lawful army.

Lindh's lawyers had portrayed him as an American who asserted his constitutional rights when he decided to fight for Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers. They asked U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to dismiss the indictment that charges Lindh with conspiring to murder Americans, providing services to the Taliban and al-Qaida and using firearms during crimes of violence. He could face life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.

"Lindh's freedom of association claim is baseless," the government said in one of several written motions. "In the first place, the offenses alleged in the indictment involve violence, not expression.

"Lindh is not charged with joining a subversive political party, or with circulating incendiary handbills or religious material, or with exhorting an audience in a city park to oppose the government.

"Instead, he is charged with undergoing weeks of training from the world's most lethal and accomplished terrorist group, arming himself with rifles and grenades, and spending several months as a jihadist warrior for the Taliban, eventually in opposition to his own country."

Combat immunity, the government argued, is available to members of a lawful armed force. President Bush's declaration that the Taliban army was an unlawful militia "is not subject to review in this court," the prosecutors asserted.

In addition to Lindh's association with the Taliban, the government said he "traveled halfway around the world to seek training at camps operated by al-Qaida — the international terrorist organization that launched the September 11 attacks against the United States and operated within Afghanistan alongside the Taliban.”

"Defendant does not even attempt to argue that al-Qaida could qualify for lawful combatant status, and of course it could not."

Jury selection for Lindh's trial is scheduled for Aug. 26.

Update

Federal court rejects Lindh defense's constitutional claims
Judge refuses to dismiss indictment, saying: 'The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of association is not a pass to provide terrorists with resources and services.'  06.18.02

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Lindh claims First Amendment right to associate with al-Qaida
Lawyers for 22-year-old Californian say criminal charges should be dropped because the government seeks to punish him for consorting with unpopular groups.  05.16.02