US Taliban member jailed for 20 years

A court in Virginia sentenced John Walker Lindh, the American member of the Taliban, to 20 years in prison last night for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan after the World Trade Centre attacks last year.

Lindh, 21, who was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in November, read a 14-minute statement to the court before the sentencing. Sniffling repeatedly and almost breaking down at one point, Lindh, who had converted to Islam, said he had "made a mistake" joining the Taliban forces.

The sentence was agreed through a plea bargain deal under which Lindh briefed federal investigators on everything he knew about the Taliban and its links to al-Qa'ida. He was one of a number in federal custody to relate hearing of a plan that called for a three-wave attack on the United States. The toppling of the World Trade Centre was part only of the first phase of the purported campaign.

Investigators said they had no evidence to support what Lindh had said about the three-phase conspiracy. But Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who worked with defence lawyers and interviewed Lindh, said he told him he picked up rumours while with the Taliban about attacks after 11 September. Lindh's lawyers have said his information did not come from Taliban officials, but represented what he heard at a training camp and on the front line in Afghanistan.