John Walker Lindh, the American captured in Afghanistan in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, was released early from federal prison today, the Washington Post reported, citing Lindh's lawyer.
The New York Times has reported that Lindh obtained Irish citizenship while in prison. His father's mother is thought to have been born in Donegal.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Terms of his release include a bar on him travelling internationally and getting a passport or any other kind of travel document.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was contacted regarding the granting of Irish citizenship to Lindh but said it "does not comment on individual cases."
Lindh, who was 20 years old when he was captured, left prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on probation after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, the Washington Post said.
Now 38, Lindh is among dozens of prisoners to be released over the next few years after being captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and convicted of terrorism-related crimes followingthe attacks on the United States by al Qaeda on 11 September 2001.
His release brought objections from elected officials whoasked why Lindh was being freed early and what training paroleofficers had to spot radicalization and recidivism among former jihadists.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Lindh's release "unexplainable and unconscionable."
"There's something deeply troubling and wrong about it," he said on Fox News this morning.
Leaked US government documents published by Foreign Policy magazine show the federal government as recently as 2016 described Lindh as holding "extremist views."
"What is the current interagency policy, strategy, andprocess for ensuring that terrorist/extremist offender ssuccessfully reintegrate into society?" asked US Senators Richard Shelby and Margaret Hassan in a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Lindh's parents, Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, did not respond to requests for comment and Lindh's lawyer, Bill Cummings, declined to comment.
Melissa Kimberley, a spokeswoman for the prison in Terre Haute, could not immediately be reached for confirmation of the Post's report.
US-born Lindh converted from Catholicism to Islam as a teenager. At his 2002 sentencing, he said he travelled to Yemen to learn Arabic and then to Pakistan to study Islam.
He said he volunteered as a soldier with the Taliban, the radical Sunni Muslim group that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, to help fellow Muslims in their struggle or "jihad."
He said he had no intention "to fight against America" and never understood jihad to mean anti-Americanism.
Lindh told the court he condemned "terrorism on every level" and attacks by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were "completely against Islam."
But a January 2017 report by the US government's National Counterterrorism Center, published by Foreign Policy, said that,as of May 2016, Lindh "continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts."
NBC News reported that Lindh wrote a letter to its Los Angeles station KNBC in 2015 expressing support for Islamic State, saying the Islamic militant group was fulfilling "a religious obligation to establish a caliphate through armed struggle."
