Lawyer Is Convicted of Aiding Terrorists
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 10, 2005
Filed at 3:26 P.M. ET
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 has been deliberating off-and-on over the past month in the case of
Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing
radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene.
The jury deliberated 13 days in all.
Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison on charges of giving material support
to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government.
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.
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