Civil rights lawyer sentenced to prison

[Kat Kanning]

Civil rights lawyer sentenced to prison

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 13 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced Monday to 28 months in prison on a terrorism charge for helping a client who plotted to blow up New York City landmarks communicate with his followers, a sentence far less than 30 years prosecutors wanted.
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Stewart, 67, smiled as the judge announced he would send her to prison for less than 2 1/2 years.

"If you send her to prison, she's going to die. It's as simple as that," defense lawyer Elizabeth Fink had told the judge before the sentence was pronounced.

Stewart, who was treated last year for breast cancer, was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists. She had released a statement by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian sheik sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in plots to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president.

Prosecutors have called the case a major victory in the war on terrorism. They said Stewart and other defendants carried messages between the sheik and senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization, helping spread Abdel-Rahman's call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.

In a letter to the judge before her hearing, Stewart proclaimed: "I am not a traitor."

"The end of my career truly is like a sword in my side," She said in court Monday. "Permit me to live out the rest of my life productively, lovingly, righteously."

In a pre-sentence document, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl that Stewart's "egregious, flagrant abuse of her profession, abuse that amounted to material support to a terrorist group, deserves to be severely punished."

Stewart, in her letter to the judge, said she did not intentionally enter into any plot or conspiracy to aid a terrorist organization. She believes the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made her behavior intolerable in the eyes of the government and gave it an excuse to make an example out of her.

"The government's characterization of me and what occurred is inaccurate and untrue," she wrote. "It takes unfair advantage of the climate of urgency and hysteria that followed 9/11 and that was relived during the trial. I did not intentionally enter into any plot or conspiracy to aid a terrorist organization."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember argued at her sentencing that the case had nothing to with Sept. 11.

"What she was doing was smuggling terrorism messages and smuggling out Abdel-Rahman's responses," Dember said.

About 150 Stewart supporters who could not get inside the capacity-filled courtroom stood outside the courthouse, chanting "Free Lynne, Free Lynne." Some 200 others jammed the hallways outside the courtroom.

"It's not just Lynn Stewart who is a victim, it's the Bill of Rights that's the victim," said Al Dorfman, 72, a retired lawyer who joined the crowd outside.

Stewart was arrested six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, along with Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a U.S. postal worker. The indictment against them was brought by former Attorney General
John Ashcroft in 2002.

Koeltl sentenced Sattar to 24 years in prison. Convicted of conspiracy to kill and kidnap people in a foreign country, he could have been sentenced to life.

"I am not a violent person," Sattar said. "I am a human being. I am an America. I am a Muslim who practices and believes strongly in his religion."

Koeltl said he departed from the federal sentencing guidelines because no one was killed or injured as a result of the crimes and because of Sattar's lack of previous crimes and restrictive prison conditions.

[Jim Johnson]

'conspiracy to kill and kidnap people in a foreign country':shock:
Someone needs to tell Bush before he invades Afghanistan or Iraq.  :-[never mind.
Someone should tell the US military though because I now they probably have 100,000 guys working on that all the time.
Aren't those guys in the CIA doing something like that too? ???
We're going to need a lot more jails.

[mvpel]

You're willing to be an apologist for someone who was helping out people who wanted to kill as many people as possible?

One of the most incendiary communications was a message Stewart herself gave to the Reuters news service in June 2000 in which the sheikh announced his withdrawal of support for a cease-fire between the Egyptian Islamic Group and the Egyptian government. The truce had been in place since 1997, just after his followers in Egypt had opened fire on tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, killing 58 foreigners and 4 Egyptians. Subsequently, high-casualty Islamist terrorism resumed in Egypt on October 7, 2004, with a series of bombings that killed 34 in and around the Egyptian Sinai resort of Taba. On July 23, 2005, three bombs exploded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing at least 64.

Government investigators searching Stewart's law offices found a draft of the sheikh's fatwa that bin Laden later said inspired him. In it, Abdel Rahman enjoined his fellow Muslims everywhere to kill Americans, even children, "to treat them with brutality," and to "drown their ships, shoot down their airplanes, kill them on earth, in the sea or in the sky, kill them everywhere you find them" in order to obtain his release from U.S. prison.

I mean, what's up with that?  Are you serious?

[Tom Sawyer]

You're willing to be an apologist for someone who was helping out people who wanted to kill as many people as possible?

Who is being an apologist?

[Kat Kanning]

Me I suppose.  It changes your point of view when you realize the "terrorists" are basically all working for our government.

[cathleeninnh]

I have trouble following movies if the bad guys aren't dressed in black. I am having trouble here too. Two claims against her. One that she gave a news service a message that was from a bad guy (dressed in black). And the other that she had a letter in her office that was a broadcasted letter from a bad guy (dressed in black) calling for violence. Is the fact that she got these enough to make her also a bad guy? Or did they prove more involvement than that, just didn't report it?

Cathleen

[mvpel]

Her client was specifically prohibited from communicating with the outside world, because he was the leader of a group of individuals seeking to kill as many people as possible, and she helped him circumvent that prohibition in order to allow him to convey instructions to his followers, costing innocent lives.

And the evidence is that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Someone who drives the getaway car for a murderer is culpable along with the murderer himself.  That's a well-established principle of common-law jurisprudence.

Too bad this woman only got a slap on the wrist.

[cathleeninnh]

Didn't the article say her sentence was light because no one was killed?

Cathleen

[Dreepa]

Someone who drives the getaway car for a murderer is culpable along with the murderer himself.  That's a well-established principle of common-law jurisprudence.

Should the President and Congress also be tried for murder?  They did invade a country for no reason.  As well as break the Constitution that they swore to defend.

[Tom Sawyer]

Folks who question the legitimacy of our governments policies aren't by default apologist for terrorists.

Soon... they won't have to bother with a trial and such.

Bush signs bill on terror prosecution
http://tinyurl.com/y6deo6

Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said, "We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation's history."

"It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity to challenge their detention in court," Feingold said. "And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death."

[KBCraig]

Folks who question the legitimacy of our governments policies aren't by default apologist for terrorists.

That is very true.

I must also point out that that folks who are prosecuted for terrorism aren't necessarily innocent victims of a government gone overboard.

Omar Abdel-Rahman was the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, planned the destruction of other NYC monuments, and also issued the fatwah that resulted in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Saddat (for being "too Western" for Islam). One of his close followers was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is one of the major players in Al Qaeda organization, and is generally thought of as a principle lieutenant to Osama bin Laden.

That background was well established when Lynn Stewart became Abdel-Rahman's defender. Part of his sentence was that he have no contact with specific persons and groups. All defense lawyers know that they can't participate in the defendant's crime, or they lose all immunity and are subject to prosecution.

Lynn Stewart did everything she could to pass Abdel-Rahman's orders of jihad to his followers, who had already pledged war against the West (with NYC as the primary target).

Unlike some, I'm not angry that she only got 28 months instead of 30 years. I actually consider it an appropriate sentence. I'm also not angry that she got 28 months instead of going scot-free. She was an active participant in a terror conspiracy against America.

And just as a reminder, most of this pre-dates the current administration.

Kevin

[mvpel]

No reason, except for the litany of reasons laid out by a nearly unanamous vote of Democrats  and Republicans alike, and signed into law by President Clinton.

In another time when humility and decency were still seen as virtues, Lynne Stewart would have been left to slink off around the corner of the courthouse in shame after sounding a note of contrition for this crime against her fellow citizens. Instead, New Yorkers who are endangered by her warped and reckless notion of "client service" are left with their mouths agape at this spectacle of celebration by people who appear utterly blind to the threat represented by the terrorists Lynne Stewart saw fit to aid. This disquieting and shameful episode can be viewed (here). The misplaced priorities so clearly on display on the courthouse steps are a perfect example of why liberals have so little credibility on security.