'American Taliban' to be Moved for Trial

Jan. 21, 2002 -- John Walker Lindh, the young American found fighting alongside al Qaeda troops, will likely be flown Tuesday from a U.S. Navy ship in the Arabian Sea to face trial in United States, U.S. officials said today.

He will face criminal prosecution on charges of conspiring to kill his fellow countrymen at a federal district court in northern Virginia. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

A Frenchman, Zacarias Moussaoui, is also awaiting trial for alleged complicity in the Sept. 11 terror attacks there. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Lindh would arrive "sometime in the days ahead."

The 20-year-old Californian has been held on the amphibious attack ship USS Bataan since he was found among the prisoners who staged a bloody uprising near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, in which CIA operative Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed.

He will be the last prisoner to leave the Bataan, which was initially used to confine higher-level Taliban and al Qaeda suspects.

U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Lindh would likely make a first stop at the U.S. base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, where still more Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners are being held, before continuing on to his final destination.

Because Lindh is a U.S. citizen, he will not be taken to the U.S. naval base in Cuba with other prisoners.

Concern Over Detainees Continues

On Tuesday, civil rights advocates are expected to present a petition to a federal judge in Los Angeles, challenging the detention of terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.

The petitioners are demanding that the U.S. government bring the approximately 110 suspects held in Cuba before a court and define the charges against them.

They also say the suspects are being held in violation of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Constitution.

The petitioners will be represented by Stephen Yagman, an attorney known for representing plaintiffs in police abuse cases.

On of the petitioners, Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told The Associated Press that one of the petitioners claimed, "These individuals were brought out of their country in shackles, drugged, gagged and blindfolded, and are being held in open-air cages in Cuba."

"Someone should be asserting their rights under international law," Chemerinsky said.

There have been concerns about the prisoners since the weekend release of Pentagon photos showing prisoners in orange jumpsuits kneeling down with their arms manacled and wearing large black goggles and ear cups.

But U.S. Marine Brig. Gen Michael Lehnert, commander of the task force running the prison operation, told reporters today that the pictures showed the detainees when they had just arrived at the base. Lehnert said these were necessary security precautions taken to transfer the detainees to the Cuba base.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also moved to allay fears of American abuse at the camp today, by issuing a report that said the three Britons among the prisoners had "no complaints" about their treatment.

But the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is also inspecting the camp, said today that U.S. officials may have violated the Geneva Convention by releasing photographs of the prisoners.

Life at the Camp

Meanwhile, 14 more battle-scarred detainees arrived on stretchers at Guantanamo Bay.

Officials said that in the coming days, arrivals at the camp would be mostly wounded detainees who could be given better medical treatment at the base than in the other major U.S. detention facility in Kandahar.

Lehnert also announced that a Navy Muslim cleric was being sent to the base in Cuba to give guidance on religious issues, noting the issue of the detainees' hair would be raised with the cleric.

Detainees have had their long hair cut and beards shaved for what U.S. officials said were health reasons.

So far there have been "very few incidents" among the detainees, Lehnert said — with three or four people apparently responsible for yelling or becoming violent about once every two or three evenings.

As Much As $15 Billion Needed

At a high-profile meeting in Tokyo, delegates from dozens of nations pledged some $4.5 billion in support for war-ravaged Afghanistan — although the United Nations said much more aid is needed.

In turn, the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, promised a credible government.

"I stand before you today as a citizen of a country that has had nothing but disaster, war, brutality and deprivation against its people for so many years," Karzai told the international conference.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would commit nearly $300 million to reconstruction assistance — in addition to $400 million in humanitarian aid already pledged.

Japan promised $500 million over 2 1/2 years, while the European Union said it will send about $500 million in 2002, with a goal of providing about $900 million in total over five years.

"I want these people to throw away their guns to take up farming tools and to shed their sense of insecurity," said the conference's host, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. "We must demonstrate our firm determination to be united in support of the efforts by the people of Afghanistan."

Still, the billions raised at the meeting is far from enough to cover Afghanistan's needs. By some U.N. estimates, the cash-starved nation will need $15 billion in the coming decade for reconstruction.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Afghanistan needs $1.3 billion immediately, and $10 billion over five years. Afghanistan was one of the world's poorest even before the United States began punishing air strikes on the country Oct. 7 in an effort to find and bring to justice terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, members of his al Qaeda terror network and the former hard-line Taliban government.

No Evidence of Bin Laden's Death

In other developments:

New allegations tie shoe-bomb suspect Richard Reid to a larger terrorist network. A French journalist says Reid sent e-mails in the days prior to boarding a Paris-to-Miami flight in late December in which he allegedly claimed direct responsibility for destroying an airplane and said he would be a "martyr for the Islamic cause."

American officials said the United States has no evidence bin Laden died of kidney failure from lack of dialysis equipment, as some reports speculated last week. "I don't think anyone really knows where he is or whether he is dead or alive," Powell said on ABCNEWS' This Week. On NBC's Meet the Press, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he, too, doubted bin Laden had died of kidney failure. "The reality is he could be dead," Rumsfeld said. "He could be alive. He could be in Afghanistan. He could be somewhere else."