Knight Ridder Newspapers

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- The sentence says 20 years in federal prison. But just where John Walker Lindh will serve his time -- under what skies and at what security level -- remains for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to decide.

Lindh's defense team is now lobbying officials in Washington, arguing that the 21-year-old former Taliban foot soldier could face physical peril at a high-security federal penitentiary.

"These are dangerous people. He'd be a trophy for somebody to go after," said Alan Ellis, a Sausalito attorney who is working as a consultant for Lindh's defense team.

Ellis, author of "The Federal Prison Guidebook," said Lindh is not eligible to be placed in one of the minimum-security camps known derisively as "Club Fed." He could, however, be sent to a medium-security institution at Terminal Island, near San Pedro; to a high-security federal penitentiary also in Lompoc, or to another high-security penitentiary in Atwater, near Merced.