Lawyer Convicted of Helping Terrorists

NEW YORK - A veteran civil rights lawyer was convicted Thursday of crossing the line by smuggling messages of violence from one of her jailed clients ? a radical Egyptian sheik ? to his terrorist disciples on the outside.

The jury had deliberated 13 days over the past month before convicting Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene.

Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison on charges that include conspiracy, giving material support to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government.

Minutes before the verdict was read, Stewart said she felt "nervous. I'm scared, worried." When she heard the pronouncement, Stewart began shaking her head and wiping her eyes. The courtroom was filled with her supporters, who gasped. She will remain free on bail, but must stay in New York, until her July 15 sentencing.

The trial focused attention on the line between zealous advocacy and criminal behavior by a lawyer. Some defense lawyers saw the case as a government warning to attorneys to tread carefully in terrorism cases.

The jury also convicted a U.S. postal worker, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, of plotting to "kill and kidnap persons in a foreign country" by publishing an edict urging the killing of Jews and their supporters. A third defendant, Arabic interpreter Mohamed Yousry, was convicted of providing material support to terrorists. Sattar could face life in prison and Yousry up to 20 years.

Stewart was the lawyer for Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for conspiring to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) and destroy several New York landmarks, including the U.N. building and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Stewart's co-defendants also had close ties to Abdel-Rahman.

Prosecutors said Stewart and the others carried messages between the sheik and senior members of a Egyptian-based terrorist organization, helping spread Abdel-Rahman's venomous call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.

At the time, the sheik was in solitary confinement in Minnesota under special prison rules to keep him from communicating with anyone except his wife and his lawyers.

Prosecutor Andrew Dember argued that Stewart and her co-defendants essentially "broke Abdel-Rahman out of jail, made him available to the worst kind of criminal we find in this world ? terrorists."

Stewart, who once represented Weather Underground radicals and mob turncoat Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, repeatedly declared her innocence, maintaining she was unfairly targeted by overzealous prosecutors.

But she also testified that she believed violence was sometimes necessary to achieve justice: "To rid ourselves of the entrenched, voracious type of capitalism that is in this country that perpetuates sexism and racism, I don't think that can come nonviolently."

A major part of the prosecution's case was Stewart's 2000 release of a statement withdrawing the sheik's support for a cease-fire in Egypt by his militant followers. Prosecutors, though, could point to no violence that resulted from the statement.

Videotape of prison conversations between Stewart and the sheik also were played for jurors ? recordings the defense denounced as an intrusion into attorney-client privilege.

< First of all, attorney-client privilege is very important. With it infringed there will no longer be any possibility of justice except by luck. The real issue here is that someone who had specific legal priviledge did something that they had no reason to believe was illegal (nor should it be, or can we hold the Post Office lible for letter bombs?) and is faced with 20 years in prison for it. Let's take the layered approach... First of all, noones supposed to know what goes on between lawyer and client, secondly she had no reason to believe there was any particular kind of content, now that's all someone alreadt phyically seperate from any possible illegal act. Now then, the person writing had every right to privacy. The contents of that letter should only have ever been seen by the intended recipient. If this person wrote to encourage violence, that too is a matter of his freedom, not someone elses POTENTIAL safety. There is also the possibility that he was not serious in how it was written. Finally, Even beyond all of that, the violent act to be committed may very well have been justified. In no way is it remotely possible for this woman to be justly held libel for any wrongdoing. >