THE US: A US judge has sentenced John Walker Lindh, the American captured by US forces during the war in Afghanistan, to 20 years in prison for fighting in support of the Taliban.
"You made a bad choice to join the Taliban and to engage in that effort over there," District Judge T.S. Ellis told Lindh as he pronounced the sentence.
Before being sentenced, Lindh broke down in tears as he told the court that he regretted ever joining the Taliban and said he condemned terrorism.
Under a deal hammered out in July, Lindh was spared a life prison sentence and all terrorism charges against him were dropped. He pleaded guilty to two charges of aiding the Taliban and carrying explosives.
In a separate case yesterday, Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, pleaded guilty to charges that he tried to blow up a transatlantic flight with explosives stuffed in his shoes.
Chief US District Judge William Young accepted Reid's decision to change his plea to guilty from not guilty, a move that could send the 29-year-old British citizen to prison for the rest of his life.
"Basically I got on a plane with a bomb. Basically I tried to ignite it [and\] basically I intended to damage the plane," Reid, dishevelled and wearing a beige prison jumpsuit, told the court.
When Judge Young reminded Reid he would probably use the government's claims of his al- Qaeda links for the purposes of sentencing, Reid said: "I'm a disciple of Osama bin Laden. I'm an enemy of your country. I don't care."
Lindh, who actually trained and fought with al-Qaeda, was charged originally with 10 counts of conspiring to kill Americans and conspiring with the Taliban and bin Laden's al- Qaeda network.
Reviled by some Americans who saw him as a traitor, Lindh, who became known as the American Taliban, was caught in Afghanistan in late November while fighting with the Taliban movement.
Lindh was handed over to the US military on December 1st, 2001. - (Reuters)