Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid, aka John Walker Lindh, is asking for mercy. Via the San Francisco Chronicle:

American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has asked President Bush again to reduce his 20-year prison sentence by an unspecified amount, Lindh’s attorney said Tuesday.

Lindh, now in his early 20s, wrote a first-person account to the Justice Department’s pardon attorneys arguing why he believes Bush should reduce his sentence. Lindh’s attorney said the document could not be publicly released under U.S. government restrictions intended to prevent Lindh from disclosing national secrets.

National secrets? Don’t worry. The New York Times will no doubt have its hands on the document and the whole world will know what’s in it soon enough, I’m sure. More:

Lindh, a native of Marin County, Calif., who is now imprisoned in southern California, was captured in Afghanistan weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He pleaded guilty in U.S. civilian court to supplying services to the Taliban government and carrying explosives for them, but the government dismissed terrorism-related charges against Lindh.

“As passions have cooled, it became clearer to people that John was a young man … who was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Lindh’s attorney, James Brosnahan of San Francisco. “Hopefully, this president or some future president will reduce his sentence.”

Hopefully, no president will do such a thing after listening to the family of Mike Spann, the slain CIA officer and former Marine Corps artillery specialist who interrogated Lindh in Afghanistan before being killed in a Taliban prison revolt where Lindh was captured. Here’s part of a CNN interview from last fall with widow Shannon Spann after Lindh cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid a life sentence:

[Host Bill] HEMMER: Then how do you feel today knowing that the plea has been reached and John Walker Lindh possibly will be in jail until the age of 40?

SPANN: Yes, I mean I think it made — it caused me to reflection my husband, really, and the sort of level of integrity that he had and his standard for accepting personally, you know, personal responsibility for his actions. In one sense I’m gratified that Mr. Walker has found it within himself to be able to accept responsibility for his actions overseas. I think that’s not a small thing, really, for me on a personal level.

I should have been pleased to have seen all of those charges addressed, but in any case I’m taking some small comfort from the fact that he has admitted his guilt.

HEMMER: I mean no disrespect by the following question to your husband, but there are those who believe that at the age of 21 John Walker Lindh was just a misguided young man chasing a crazy ideology. He won’t be out of jail until the age of 40. They claim he’s no threat today and won’t be when he’s out of jail.

Do you understand and agree with that thought?

SPANN: Well, no. I mean I think the vast majority of the American people don’t agree with those kinds of statements. I mean certainly men and women in uniform and out of uniform all over the world are defending the freedoms that we enjoy in this country at ages younger than the age Mr. Walker was when he made that determination.

I mean he was an adult and he certainly indicated in his statements, both before he was captured and after, that he was passionately pursuing the course of action that he took. And I’m convinced that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Exactly. Don’t let the unreality-based moonbats argue otherwise. Send your comment to the White House here.

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I had the privilege of witnessing Spann’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery in December 2001 and meeting Shannon in 2002–indelible moments that will stay with me the rest of my life. Spann is survived by Shannon and three young children–one son and two daughters. You can contribute to the Spann Memorial Fund here.

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