INDIANAPOLIS — Lawyers for American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh asked a federal judge yesterday to find the Federal Bureau of Prisons in contempt for not allowing Muslim inmates in a high-security Indiana prison unit to pray together five times a day, as required by their faith.
The prisons agency has said inmates of all religions housed in the Terre Haute federal prison’s Communications Management Unit have been allowed to pray together three times daily after a federal judge ruled in Lindh’s favor in a lawsuit seeking the prayers.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana argues in its contempt motion filed in US District Court in Indianapolis that three times a day isn’t what Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson’s Jan. 11 ruling required.
Magnus-Stinson had said federal law requires the prison to accommodate Lindh’s belief that he should pray with other Muslims five times a day.