2 Sentenced for Trying to Join Taliban

2 Sentenced for Trying to Join Taliban

AP | 11/24/03 | ANDREW KRAMER

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Two American Muslims who tried to join the
Taliban were sentenced to 18 years in prison Monday during a hearing
in which they denounced the Bush administration and pleaded in song
for freedom.
Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, and Jeffrey Leon Battle, 33, had pleaded
guilty in October to conspiracy to levy war against the United States.

Both said that in trying to reach Afghanistan, they were fulfilling
their Islamic duty to defend fellow Muslims.

"The attack on Afghanistan killed and maimed thousands of people
without achieving its objective," said Ford, who had traveled to China
in an unsuccessful attempt to reach Afghanistan. "I refuse to stand
passive in the face of such policies."

Ford, once an intern at Portland's City Hall, said he felt obliged as
a Muslim to defend his fellow Muslims against "President Bush's
cruise-missile diplomacy."

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones admonished Ford by saying: "You do
not represent the Muslim faith. Muslims do not engage in the
activities you engaged in. You are an insult to that faith."

Battle, a former Army reservist, also spoke of his obligations as a
Muslim and concluded by singing a 10-minute song he said he had
written in prison. The courtroom was silent during the song, which
ended with the stanza, "Free, free, free, for all humanity, release
me."

Battle and Ford were among six people accused of conspiring to travel
to Afghanistan in 2001 and fight U.S. troops after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. A seventh was charged with providing financial
support.

Four of the others pleaded guilty, and a fifth was killed in a
shootout in Pakistan.






*****  Oderint dum metuant! *****