John Walker Lindh

On May 23, 2019, Lindh was released from the Terre Haute, Indiana federal prison prior to the end of his 20-year sentence for good behavior, although he accepted several probation requirements due to his continued support of Islamist ideology. The probation lasts for the remaining three years of his sentence.

In 2010, Lindh and the Syrian-American prisoner Enaam Arnaout sued to lift restrictions on group prayer by Muslim inmates in the Communication Management Unit. On January 11, 2013, a federal judge ruled in their favor, saying that the government had shown no compelling interest in restricting the religious speech of the inmates by prohibiting them from praying together.

Lindh secured Irish citizenship in 2013 through his paternal grandmother, Kathleen Maguire, who was born in Donegal.

In April 2007, citing the reduced sentence for the Australian prisoner David Matthew Hicks, Lindh's attorneys made a public plea for a Presidential commutation to lessen his 20-year sentence. In January 2009, the Lindh family's petition for clemency was denied by President Bush in one of his final acts in office. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, all "special administrative measures" in place against Lindh expired on March 20, 2009, as part of a gradual easing of restrictions on him.

In January 2003, Lindh was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary, Victorville, a high-security facility northeast of Los Angeles. On March 3, 2003, Lindh was tackled by inmate Richard Dale Morrison. He assaulted Lindh at prayer, causing bruises on his forehead. On July 2, 2003, Morrison was charged with a misdemeanor count of assault.

In 2002, former President George H. W. Bush referred to Lindh as "some misguided Marin County hot-tubber". The comment, in which Bush also mispronounced the county's name, provoked a minor furor and prompted a retraction of the statement by Bush. Lindh's attorney told the press that his client had asked for a lawyer repeatedly before being interviewed by the FBI but he did not get one, and that "highly coercive" prison conditions forced Lindh to waive his right to remain silent. Although the FBI asked Jesselyn Radack, a Justice Department ethics adviser, whether Lindh could be questioned without a lawyer present, they did not follow her advice to avoid that scenario.

On February 5, 2002, Lindh was indicted by a federal grand jury on ten charges:

If convicted of these charges, Lindh could have received up to three life sentences and 90 additional years in prison. On February 13, 2002, he pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges. The court scheduled an evidence suppression hearing, at which Lindh would have been able to testify about the details of the torture to which he claimed he was subjected. The government faced the problem that a key piece of evidence – Lindh's confession – might be excluded from evidence as having been forced under duress (i.e. torture).

Lindh accepted this offer. On July 15, 2002, he entered his plea of guilty to the two remaining charges. The judge asked Lindh to say, in his own words, what he was admitting to: "I plead guilty. I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to December. In the course of doing so, I carried a rifle and two grenades. I did so knowingly and willingly knowing that it was illegal." Lindh said that he "went to Afghanistan with the intention of fighting against terrorism and oppression", fighting for the suffering of ordinary people at the hands of the Northern Alliance. On October 4, 2002, Judge T.S. Ellis III imposed a sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

At the age of 20, Lindh decided to travel to Afghanistan to fight for the Afghan Taliban government forces against Northern Alliance fighters. His parents said that he was moved by stories of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Northern Alliance army against civilians. He traveled to Afghanistan in May 2001. Tony West, his lawyer, explained it as follows: "One of the first things he told Army interrogators when they questioned him on December 3, 2001, was that after 9/11 happened, he wanted to leave the front lines but couldn't for fear of his life. John never wanted to be in a position where he was opposing the United States (and never thought he would be), and in fact he never opposed any American military."

Lindh was captured on November 25, 2001, by Afghan Northern Alliance forces after his foreign fighters unit surrendered at Kunduz after retreating from Takar. He and other fighters were to be questioned by the CIA officers Johnny "Mike" Spann and Dave "Dawson" Tyson at General Dostum's military garrison, Qala-i-Jangi, near Mazār-e Sharīf. During the initial questioning, Lindh was not advised of his rights and his request for a lawyer was denied.

Sometime during the initial uprising, Lindh was shot in the right upper thigh and found refuge in a basement, hiding with a group of Arab, Uzbek, and Pakistani detainees. On the second day, the Red Cross sent in workers to collect the dead. As soon as they entered, the workers were shot by the prisoners, who killed one. The Northern Alliance repeatedly bombarded the area with RPGs and grenade attacks, and set alight fuel it poured in. Finally, on December 2, 2001, Northern Alliance forces diverted an irrigation stream into the middle of the camp to flush the remaining prisoners out of their underground shelters, drowning many in the process. Lindh and about 85 survivors from the original 300–500 were forced out of hiding. Northern Alliance soldiers bound Lindh's elbows behind his back.

After capture, Lindh was given basic first aid and questioned for a week at Mazār-e Sharīf. He was taken to Camp Rhino on December 7, 2001, the bullet still within his thigh. When Lindh arrived at Camp Rhino, he was stripped and restrained on a stretcher, blindfolded and placed in a metal shipping container, which was procedure for dealing with a potentially dangerous detainee associated with a terrorist organization. While bound to the stretcher, he was photographed by some American military personnel. At Camp Rhino, he was given oxycodone/paracetamol for pain and diazepam.

On December 8 and 9, he was interviewed by the FBI and was mirandized on December 9 or 10. He was held at Camp Rhino until he was transferred to the USS Peleliu on December 14, 2001 with other wounded detainees, where his wound was operated on and he received further care. He was interrogated before the operation on December 14. While on the Peleliu, he signed confession documents while he was held by the United States Marine Corps. On December 31, 2001, Lindh was transferred to the USS Bataan, where he was held until January 22, 2002. He was flown back to the United States to face criminal charges. On January 16, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that Lindh would be tried in the United States.

Lindh returned to Yemen in February 2000 and left for Pakistan to study at a madrasa. While abroad, Lindh exchanged numerous emails with his family. In one, his father told him about the USS Cole bombing, to which Lindh replied that the American naval destroyers being in the Yemen harbor had been an act of war, and that the bombing was justified. "This raised my concerns," his father told Newsweek, "but my days of molding him were over."

Although his parents did not divorce until 1999, their marriage was in serious trouble throughout Lindh's adolescence. His father often left their Marin residence for extended periods to live in San Francisco with a male lover. Frank Lindh said he and Marilyn had been separated since 1997.

A convert to Sunni Islam in California at age 16, Lindh traveled to Yemen in 1998 to study Arabic and stayed there for 10 months. He later returned in 2000, then went to Afghanistan to aid the Taliban. He received training at Al-Farouq, a training camp associated with al-Qaeda, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries. While at the camp, he attended a lecture by Osama bin Laden. After the 9/11 attacks, he remained there to join opposing military forces after he learned that the U.S. was allied with the Afghan Northern Alliance. Lindh had previously received training with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, an internationally designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan.

In 1997, at the age of 16, Lindh converted to Islam. He began regularly attending mosques in Mill Valley and later in nearby San Francisco. In 1998, Lindh traveled to Yemen and stayed for about 10 months to learn Arabic so that he could read the Qur'an in its original language. He returned to the United States in 1999, living with his family for about eight months.

John Philip Walker Lindh (born February 9, 1981) is an American who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was captured and detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress, used as a prison. He took part in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners, during which all but 86 of the estimated 300–500 prisoners were killed, along with CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann. Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002, Lindh accepted a plea bargain; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on supervision on May 23, 2019, for a three-year period of supervised release.

Michael Chertoff, then-head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, then directed the prosecutors to offer Lindh a plea bargain. Lindh could plead guilty to two charges: supplying services to the Taliban (50 U.S.C. § 1705(b) , 18 U.S.C. § 2 , 31 C.F.R. 545.204 , and 31 C.F.R. 545.206a ) and carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony (18 U.S.C. § 844(h)(2) ). He would have to consent to a gag order that would prevent him from making any public statements on the matter for the duration of his 20-year sentence, and he would have to drop any claims that he had been mistreated or tortured by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan and aboard two military ships during December 2001 and January 2002. In return, all other charges would be dropped. The gag order was said to be at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.