John Walker Lindh pleads innocent
Trial date to be set Friday
By Larry Margasak
Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va.— John Walker Lindh pleaded innocent Wednesday to a 10-count federal indictment that charged him with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. The widow of a CIA officer killed shortly after questioning Lindh called him a traitor.

“Not guilty, sir,” Lindh answered, after U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III asked, “How do you plead to all the charges.”

It was Lindh’s third appearance at the federal courthouse since he was brought back to the United States by military aircraft on Jan. 24. His parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker, were there for the arraignment, as they had been for his previous court appearances. Also present were Johnny and Gail Spann, the parents of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann, killed in a prison uprising in Mazar e-Sharif in November, and his widow, Shannon Spann.

Lindh no longer has the shaved head that he had in his initial appearances and his black hair, still closely cropped, was starting to grow back. He was clean-shaven, a sharp contrast from the long beard and long hair seen in televised images of him from Afghanistan.

Lindh answered, “Yes” and “Yes” and “Correct, sir,” when the judge asked whether he had seen the indictment and had reviewed it with his attorneys.

If convicted on the charges, the 21-year-old Lindh could face life imprisonment.

Ellis did not set a trial date, but said that as a target, he would like jury selection to begin in late August. He scheduled a hearing for Friday to set a trial date and go over a pretrial schedule, which would likely include hearings on handling classified information in the case.

The government and defense counsel had suggested in motions Tuesday that the trial not begin before mid-November, but Ellis said that was too long to wait.

“November is too far,” Ellis said, adding that he was thinking of a trial in September.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Bellows said he expected the government’s case to take two weeks.

In asking for a November trial, the defense had said it would need time to conduct overseas investigations, handle classified information, argue for suppression of evidence and allow the effects of prejudicial publicity to fade.

Federal prosecutors said they disagreed with a delay due to publicity, but accepted the other reasons for a November date.

Until now the two sides have agreed on little, with prosecutors portraying Lindh as a cold-blooded killer who hated America, and the defense contending he signed up to fight the anti-Taliban northern alliance, not the United States.

The defense said in the motion that “due to the high level of prejudicial publicity, passage of time will be necessary in order that the defendant receive a fair and impartial trial.”

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