Walker: The Road Ahead

There is the crime of sedition, and seditious conspiracy. And those charges do not require two witnesses, but they are very similar to treason. The formal definition of sedition is violently undermining the government of the United States, or attempting to violently overthrow the government of the United States. Sedition is a much more difficult charge to prove in the context of Mr. Walker's participation in the prison revolt in Mazar-e Sharif. There's no evidence yet to indicate that he was in custody pursuant to American authority.

Even though he was interviewed by at least one CIA agent?

There were two CIA guys who were interviewing him, but they [presumably] didn't identify themselves as Americans or CIA agents. They were two guys who were speaking in English. With American accents though?

Well, I don't know. And I don't know [Walker's] ability to divine an American accent as opposed to a Canadian accent or the accent of an Afghan who spent his life living in America. And indeed, the administration sort of washed its hands of responsibility for the murders of the Taliban prisoners in the course of the prison uprising....

More simply, he can be charged with conspiracy to murder Americans. He can be basically charged as a terrorist. That would be the most straightforward offense, but again you would have to prove that he knew he was shooting at Americans, that he conspired to kill Americans, that by joining the Taliban he wanted to kill Americans...

It's [also] possible you could charge him with a violation of The Neutrality Act, which is the act that generally speaking prohibits Americans from planning foreign military expeditions with countries with whom the United States is not at war. You could make the argument that before Sept. 11, by going to Afghanistan to join the Taliban, [Walker] was in violation of the Neutrality Act. But you'd have to prove that he planned to join the Taliban military while he was in the United States.