John Walker Lindh, known as the “American Taliban” fighter, was released from prison Thursday.
Lindh, who headed to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 2001, was set free from prison in Terre Haute, Ind., two-and-a-half years before the end of his 20-year sentence. Lindh’s attorney Bill Cummings said he will live in Virginia.
According to Judge T.S. Ellis, Lindh’s internet communications will be monitored and he will not be permitted to communicate with any extremists or to view extremist materials as part of his supervised release. He also is barred from departing the U.S. without permission.
But lawmakers have voiced concern about Lindh’s early release. In a letter to the head of the Federal Bureau of Prison, Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Maggie Hasson, D-N.H., cited a Foreign Policy article published in 2017 that suggests he “intends to spread terrorist ideology upon his release from prison.”
Foreign Policy obtained two U.S. government reports detailing Lindh’s communications with other federal prisoners who were convicted of terrorism-related charges and the threat they pose upon their release. According to the National Counterterrorism Center, Lindh “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts” as recently as May 2016.
Lindh, now 38, met Osama bin Laden during his training with al Qaeda. He was captured by U.S.-backed Northern Alliance forces in Nov. 2001, and was then taken to Qala-i-Jangi fortress. While there, Lindh was involved in an uprising that killed CIA officer Mike Spann. He then returned to the U.S. and pleaded guilty to serving as a soldier of the Taliban in 2002. He has served 17-and-a-half years of his sentence.
When Lindh was sentenced in 2002, he claimed that he was unaware of what the Taliban embodied.
“Had I realized then what I know now about the Taliban, I would never have joined them,” Lindh said during his sentencing hearing in 2002. “I never understood jihad to mean anti-Americanism or terrorism.”
But according to letters obtained by NBC’s Los Angeles station KNBC, Lindh wrote letters in 2014 and 2015 praising the Islamic State for doing “a spectacular job.”
“The Islamic State is clearly very sincere and serious about fulfilling the long-neglected religious obligation of establishing a caliphate through armed struggle, which is the only correct method,” Lindh said in a 2015 letter.
Johnny Spann, the father of Mike Spann, doesn’t believe Lindh has changed since he first joined the Taliban.
“This guy has not changed and he’s no model prisoner,” Johnny Spann told the Washington Examiner. “He’s still a radical Islamic terrorist. If anything, he is more radicalized than ever.”
Mike Spann’s daughter, Alison Spann, also told the Washington Examiner Lindh’s early release is a “slap in the face.”
“I’ve spent 18 years without my dad,” said Alison Spann, now 27. “It never crossed my mind that the United States would let someone like this out early.”
“Lindh is a traitor, and I think his early release is a slap in the face,” she said.
