Attorneys Seek to Block Book About Lindh

SAN FRANCISCO — SAN FRANCISCO --Lawyers for accused U.S. Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, who is facing trial on charges of conspiring to kill Americans abroad, took action Tuesday to stop publication of an instant book about his life.

San Francisco attorney George Harris wrote to University Press, a small California publishing house, telling them that the forthcoming book--thought to be the first about the 21-year-old captured in Afghanistan--is “grossly and outrageously false and defamatory.”

The letter, a copy of which was forwarded to Reuters by the publishers, warns that “publication would be at your peril.”

The book, called “John Walker Lindh; American Taliban,” is due to be published March 14 and is already listed on the Amazon.com Web site and other online book stores.

Rhawn Joseph, the owner of San Jose-based University Press, said the book was written to answer the question millions of Americans have been asking since Lindh’s capture last November: how a boy from middle-class Marin County ended up fighting for the Taliban.

Joseph said the book was based on investigative reporting in California and other states but the two authors had not traveled abroad.

“We are going forward with publication,” Joseph told Reuters, adding that University Press had made “repeated attempts” to work with the family and Lindh’s lawyers.