An Exclusive Interview with Bush Political Prisoner Susan Lindauer

An Exclusive Interview with
Bush Political Prisoner Susan Lindauer

Cassandra's reward for accurate predictions

"I am furious about the abuse that I have suffered. I regard this as a
Soviet-style attack on my rights to dissent from the government."
Susan Lindauer

American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer's Story

Michael Collins
Washington, D.C.

On March 11, 2004, Susan Lindauer was shocked to find FBI Agents pounding on the door of her Takoma Park house in Maryland with a warrant for her arrest. She was more shocked to discover that she was accused of acting as an "unregistered agent" of the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.

It's been four years since her federal indictment. On June 17, Lindauer will have her first pre-trial hearing, where she will be allowed to call witnesses to disprove the allegations.

Lindauer has never been tried in a court of law-nor allowed any pre-trial hearing to call witnesses to validate claims that she worked as an Asset supervised by U.S. intelligence for 9 years. Instead, she was forced to submit to a psychological evaluation inside a prison on a Texas military base, where she was held for seven months before getting transferred to New York. In all, she was detained for 11 months without a conviction or a guilty plea. Pro se motions for a hearing to prove the authenticity of her claims were ignored.

The psych evaluation culminated in a finding that she was incompetent to stand trial, on the grounds that she was "deluded" into believing that she had worked as a U.S. asset or would not get convicted. The coup de gras was a formal request by federal prosecutors to forcibly drug Lindauer with Haldol in order to cure her of those claims and beliefs, so that she could stand trial. She would be formally cured when she stopped declaring that witnesses would substantiate her story.

(See. American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer's Story).

This interview follows an article yesterday summarizing the case to date and the critical June 17, 2008 hearing in federal court, Southern District, Manhattan before Judge Preska. The hearing is open to the public at the defendant's request.

Previous OpEdNews.Coim coverage of Susan Lindauer's ordeal::

Michael Collins: Bush Political Prisoner Gets Her Day in Court 11 June 2008

American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer's Story 17 October 2007

Collins: When you were indicted there was a broad range of media covering your story. After about a month, things seemed to go dark with the mainstream media. How has your story stayed alive?

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