WASHINGTON -- The White House said on Wednesday the U.S. denial of a lawyer for captive American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh was appropriate because he is a "battlefield detainee" governed by the Geneva Convention.
The fate of Walker has been a growing side story to America's war in Afghanistan with a debate breaking out over how the 20-year-old Californian is to be treated after leaving his home country to join up with the Taliban.
Some legal experts questioned Walker's treatment, insisting he was entitled to a lawyer under the U.S. Constitution.
Walker, who goes by his mother's last name, was captured earlier this month after a prison uprising among Taliban fighters at which CIA agent Mike Spann was killed. Walker was wounded during the uprising outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and videotape of the bearded, pain-stricken Walker has been standard fare on 24-hour cable news shows.
His family has demanded he be allowed to see an attorney. His parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker, have attempted to portray their son, who converted to Islam at the age of 16, as a misguided idealist rather than a hard-core Muslim extremist.
"He is being treated as someone who fought against the United States in an armed conflict, and that's why he is classified properly as a battlefield detainee, and he's being treated well," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Walker has told U.S. authorities he was a member of al Qaeda, the militant network led by Osama bin Laden that President Bush blames for the Sept. 11 attacks, Pentagon officials said.
GENEVA CONVENTION CITED
Right now Mr. Walker is being treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Convention's protection for enemy belligerents who are captured as prisoners of war," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
"So long as he is in military custody and is not being questioned for law enforcement purposes he does not have the constitutional right to a lawyer," McClellan said.
Under the Geneva Convention protecting prisoners of war, he said, military authorities may question prisoners for information that is of military value in the conduct of the war without the presence of a lawyer. He said the Geneva Convention is being followed in this case.
Michael Ratner, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, challenged the White House's assertion, saying the Geneva Convention does not provide for the term "battlefield detainee."
"It's a new term. It's unheard of. There is no status battlefield detainee, they are making that up," Ratner said, adding that Walker was essentially arrested by the United States and, under the U.S. Constitution, was entitled to a lawyer.
He said the refusal of the U.S. government to allow counsel "is not what our country is about."
No decision has been made on whether to file criminal charges against Walker. Lawyers for the Justice Department and the Pentagon were reviewing the case, and Fleischer said the decision could come this week.
Bush will have the final word on what happens to Walker, based on recommendations from the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
POSSIBLE DEATH PENALTY
Walker could face charges ranging from treason, which can be punished by death, to providing material support to a terrorist organization, which carries up to 10 years in jail.
"The appropriate agencies are still reviewing the facts, and as soon as that is completed at the agency level, information will be shared with the president, with his security team, and then I think you can anticipate some type of announcement from the appropriate agency," Fleischer said.
Walker initially was held at the U.S. Marines' Camp Rhino outside the southern city of Kandahar and was taken to the USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea last Friday.
Walker's family lawyer, James Brosnahan, of San Francisco, insisted on Monday that Walker has constitutional rights, "whatever the accusation."
"Getting to the facts, allowing an accused person to talk with his attorney, ensuring that our system operates fairly regardless of the allegation -- that is what the Constitution was designed to protect," Brosnahan said in a statement.
He said Walker's parents ad been rebuffed repeatedly in their requests for information about their son or permission to see him.
McClellan said Walker only has the right to an attorney, if he requests one, once he is held in "custodial interrogation by law enforcement personnel."
"He is being detained in a manner consistent with the Geneva Convention's protections and he has been given medical care and received the protection of the United States Armed Forces in these dangerous battlefield conditions," McClellan said.
Former President George Bush, the current president's father, proposed what he called a "unique penalty" for Walker. "Make him leave his hair the way it is and his face as dirty as it is and let him go wandering around this country and see what kind of sympathy he would get. I mean, he's just despicable," the elder Bush told ABC's "Good Morning America."
