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John Walker Lindh

I have great doubts that Lindh will see himself pardoned by the outgoing president.....
I he was.... would play into the hands of anyone pushing for the release of Omar Khadr IMHO..... and as that isn't about to happen, this isn't about to happen
 
No, I don't think Bush is likely to pardon a traitor easily, quickly or at all.  But you can expect the begging bowls to be thrust forwards as they always are at the end of a two term President.
 
Here we go again.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_re_us/american_taliban


Feds to ease restrictions on 'American Taliban'
    By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press Writer Rick Callahan, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins ago AP – INDIANAPOLIS – Federal prison officials are easing restrictions on American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, moves that his attorney said Wednesday will allow Lindh to tell his story for the first time. U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Dean Boyd said the restrictions on Lindh, 28, will expire Friday. He said the current limits Lindh faces are not public and he cannot discuss them.
Although former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft first imposed restrictions on Lindh in March 2002, Boyd said they have been modified several times as "the perceived threat of Lindh's communications diminished."

Lindh is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding Afghanistan's now-defunct Taliban government. He was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 by U.S. forces sent to topple the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and supporting terrorists but pleaded guilty in 2002 to lesser offenses.

Lindh is incarcerated at a medium-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., about 80 miles west of Indianapolis, with a scheduled release date of May 23, 2019.

Jim Brosnahan, a San Francisco attorney who represents Lindh, said Wednesday that he is pleased the restrictions are being lifted.

Among other things, he said the changes will allow Lindh to contact and meet with people other than his attorneys and relatives. Brosnahan said the current restrictions have prevented Lindh from telling his side of the story of how he ended up aiding Islamic fundamentalists who ran an oppressive Afghan regime.


"I think that as time has gone by people have begun to realize, inside the government and to some extent outside the government, that John was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Brosnahan said.

Lindh, a convert to Islam, went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, which received U.S. backing. Lindh's father has said his son has been wrongly maligned as a traitor and murderer.

Brosnahan said the prison restrictions Lindh has faced were imposed "for reasons that have nothing to do with the purpose of the statute of restrictions but rather a desire that he not be allowed to speak."

Brosnahan said the government has allowed him, a second attorney, Lindh's parents and a grandmother to meet with him at the prison.

"But otherwise he couldn't talk to anybody. He couldn't talk to people like (reporters) and he couldn't say, `Look, here's what happened,'" Brosnahan said.

Before President George W. Bush left office in January, Lindh's parents and attorneys tried unsuccessfully to persuade Bush to commute Lindh's sentence and set him free.
 
Bumped with the very latest ....
This from New Jersey's Dep't of Homeland Security (a bit more @ link or in attached one-pager PDF) ...
The threat from terrorists recently released from prison is moderate given the small number of releases in connection with terrorism-related offenses in the past five years and the level of public scrutiny and supervised monitoring ... In 2013, Lindh obtained Irish citizenship through his paternal grandmother. Lindh will likely be free to leave the country after the terms of his supervised release are met, and Ireland has stated that it will allow him entry. If he moves overseas, Lindh will most likely be heavily monitored by European intelligence services in the event he attempts to reengage in terrorism.
 

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