Lindh Not Tortured, Say Prosecutors
U.S. prosecutors denied on Friday American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh had been tortured by the U.S. military after his capture in Afghanistan, saying he received medical treatment, a cot in a room with blankets, and a heater and meals.
The charges had been made in defense motions to compel discovery material — information Lindh's attorneys can use in his defense.
Lindh was captured in late November in a U.S.-led campaign to oust the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan and dismantle Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda guerrilla network there in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on America. Lindh, who was brought to the United States in January to stand trial on charges of conspiring to kill Americans abroad, has claimed he had been mistreated by the U.S. military.
"Were the facilities at Camp Rhino ideal? Of course not," prosecutor Randy Bellows said. "But the United States Marine Corps had not plucked John Walker Lindh out of the California suburb where he used to live and dropped him into a metal container in the middle of Afghanistan."
Bellows said a military policeman at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan would testify that none of the guards threatened Lindh with death or torture, as his defense lawyers claimed.
"While the Navy physician who was treating him had to sleep on a concrete floor in a sleeping bag in a room with a hole in the wall and a hole in the ceiling, Lindh slept on a stretcher in a container that protected him from the elements," Bellows said in papers filed in federal court in Virginia.
Meanwhile, about 10,000 copies of a book about John Walker Lindh's road to a Taliban training camp are now on the market, the publisher says, despite a written warning from a member of Lindh's defense team alleging the book contained defamatory material.
The books were shipped to retailers Monday, said publisher Rhawn Joseph of San Jose-based University Press, California. Joseph said Thursday nearly 12,000 orders for the 224-page paperback book, "John Walker Lindh: American Taliban," have been received so far.