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"American
Taliban" Being Returned To US For Trial
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| Walker
will be considered a prisoner of war |
With
additional reporting by IOL correspondent S.M. Khalid
WASHINGTON,
Jan. 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - John Walker Lindh, the
American who fought alongside the Taliban before being captured
after a prison riot in northern Afghanistan, is returning to the
United States Tuesday, sources at the Pentagon said.
The
sources said the 20-year-old Lindh was being moved from the USS
Bataan in the Arabian Sea, where he has been held since December, to
Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. From there, the sources stated, he
will be quickly transferred to a transport plane and be flown back
to the United States for trial.
U.S.
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told a U.S. television news
program Sunday that Lindh will return home "very soon."
"It
depends on when airplanes can pick people up and transport them to
the proper place here in the U.S., but I would think in the
immediate future, several days," Rumsfeld said on NBC's
"Meet the Press" program
Rumsfeld
claimed Lindh, who grew up in California and became a Muslim at age
16, was being well treated by his U.S. military captors.
"He
has been receiving excellent care, good food," said Rumsfeld.
"He was wounded."
He
said Lindh will be handed over to the U.S. Department of Justice and
the same northern Virginia federal court district where Zacarias
Moussaoui is to be tried for complicity in the September 11 attacks.
Lindh
has been under U.S. custody since his capture in Afghanistan last
November. He was found in November among Taliban detainees after a
bloody prison riot at Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan in
which CIA agent, Johnny "Mike" Spann, was killed.
Unlike
other Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees headed for "Camp
X-Ray" at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Lindh
is considered a prisoner of war, and as such is protected by the
Geneva Convention's internationally agreed standards for the
treatment of prisoners.
U.S.
Attorney General, John Ashcroft, said Lindh could face further
charges. The indictments against him so far could carry a sentence
of life imprisonment, but not the death penalty. Lindh, however, has
decided not to retain a lawyer.
"He's
an adult. He has a right to make that decision. His decision was
made after he was told about his rights orally, and, again, he made
a decision in writing after he was informed of his rights in
writing," Ashcroft said Sunday on CBS's "Face the
Nation" program.
Meanwhile,
a federal judge in Los Angeles, California, is scheduled to hear
arguments Tuesday on a petition challenging the detention of Afghan
war detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The
petition, backed by former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, and
other civil rights advocates, demands the U.S. government bring the
suspects before a court and define the charges against them.
Fourteen
more detainees arrived Monday at Guantanamo Bay, bringing the total
there to 158. The new detainees were taken off the plane in
stretchers. One U.S. official said the military is focusing on
bringing wounded detainees from Afghanistan to the base, where they
can receive better medical attention.
U.S.
military officials claimed all detainees - suspected Al-Qaeda
members or Taliban fighters - are being treated humanely. But
security is tight and will remain so because the suspects pose a
threat to U.S. interests, the officials said.
The
treatment of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained by U.S. forces
in Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba has drawn worldwide condemnation.
The U.S. has faced fierce international criticism for its treatment
of the prisoners, who are manacled and held in small cells open to
the elements.
Pictures of shackled and blindfolded detainees, described by the
U.S. as unlawful combatants rather than prisoners of war, have led
to accusations that the U.S. is flouting international law.
Human Rights Watch described the 1.8m by 2.4m open-sided wire cells
in which the men are being kept as “a scandal”.
The detainees have been handcuffed, blindfolded, masked and drugged
on board planes carrying them from Afghanistan the Cuba base.
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