Convicted Terror Sympathizer Lynne Stewart To Face Resentencing; UPDATE: 10 Years

Here's hoping that the judge throws the book at Lynne Stewart following a smackdown by the Appeals Court finding that the original sentence was far too lax.

U.S. District Judge John Koeltl was to resentence attorney Lynne Stewart on Thursday after considering the comments of appeals court judges who said he should review the role of terrorism in her case and consider if she lied when she testified at her trial.

Stewart, facing up to 30 years in prison, was sentenced to two years and four months after her conviction on charges that she let blind Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman communicate with a man who relayed messages to senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization.

Abdel-Rahman is serving a life sentence for conspiracies to blow up New York City landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Stewart represented him at his 1995 trial.

Stewart was sentenced in 2006 but was permitted to remain free until the appeals court ruled last November.

Initially, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a resentencing that did not seem to pressure Koeltl to boost the length of the sentence considerably. But it revised its decision a month later, saying it had "serious doubts'' whether her sentence was reasonable.

The appeals court said Koeltl might have erred if he decided the terrorism enhancement should not be applied because of Stewart's personal characteristics.

At the first sentencing, Koeltl described Stewart as "extraordinary,'' a dedicated public servant who had "represented the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular, often as a court-appointed attorney,'' thus providing a "service not only to her clients but to the nation.''

Stewart was convicted of passing on messages to Abdel-Rahman's followers despite agreements with prosecutors not to do so and in contravention of federal law. She was knowingly violating those agreements and has shown no remorse over doing so.

It also appears that she may have perjured herself in the case, which should have resulted in a far harsher sentence than originally handed down.

UPDATE:
Judge Koeltl essentially threw the book at Stewart with a 10 year sentence.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to impose a sentence of at least 15 years. The courtroom was packed with supporters of Stewart, who applauded her entrance and shouted "No!" when she said she feared she had let them down.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember told Koeltl that "substantial incarceration is warranted" because Stewart knew she was part of a conspiracy to murder innocent civilians.

"She repeatedly lied to the government and deceived the government," Dember said. "Ms. Stewart repeatedly committed perjury in this case."

He said she was just "another criminal who fails to accept responsibility."

In her statement to the judge, Stewart said she found prison life "worse than I could have imagined."

She added: "I will live, not standing on my head, that I know for sure — just surviving."

She'll be out in less time than that since she had begun serving her original sentence.

Still, the 10 year sentence is far more appropriate than the sentence originally handed down. Yet, even that sentence was considered too much by her supporters who bought into the notion that she was able to pass on statements urging Sheikh Rahman's followers to jihad.

Do Not Pass Go; Go Directly To Jail

So says the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to terrorist appeaser and sycophant, Lynne Stewart.

Stewart was a lawyer who represented blind sheikh Abdel Rahman in his trial. She was warned not to pass any messages between Rahman and his followers. She did.

A lengthy trial resulted in a conviction, and the trial court granted a lenient sentence, the operation of which has been delayed by legal maneuverings and Stewart has remained out on bail since 2002.

The court upheld the conviction, and they revoked bail. Stewart must report to prison to begin serving her sentence immediately. In fact, the court found that the trial court's sentencing to be lenient.

Disbarred radical lawyer Lynne Stewart is going to jail – maybe for a lot longer than she thought.

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld her conviction for smuggling messages to her jailed terrorist client, and said she deserves more than the 28 months she got because she may have lied at her trial.

Stewart, 70, is to surrender to U.S. Marshals immediately. The Brooklyn resident has been free on bail since 2006.

In fact, the decision can be found here.

The court essentially rebukes the sentencing phase of Stewart's trial and requires the trial court to resentence Stewart. However, that will not delay Stewart's date with the inside of a justly deserved prison cell.

As I'd reported previously, the prosecutors had been asking for 30 years (with sentencing guideline support), and she got a weak slap on the wrist for breaking the law and consorting with and passing messages for known terrorists. She was unrepentant over her actions, and should have been remanded to prison the moment the initial sentence was handed down.

This is justice delayed, and I can only hope that the trial court comes around on the sentencing to adjust Stewart's term to a much more appropriate level.

For those who think that this might result in her spending the rest of her life in prison, I have nary a tear to shed for that. She aided and abetted terrorists in communicating with their brethren overseas. She knew that the conduct was prohibited and she lied to prosecutors and violated the law. She was a member of the state bar and knew her responsibilities to the court and decided that assisting her terrorist client was in order.

Unrepentant

Lynne Stewart, the convicted and disbarred attorney who assisted Sheikh Abdel Rahman pass messages along to his minions here in the US and overseas to Israel, spoke at Hofstra Law School last night.

Her message was loud and clear.

Stewart helped Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of planning a massive terror-bombing campaign in New York, pass messages to an Egyptian associate posing as a translator while she pretended to ask questions.

She later called her performance Academy Award-worthy, but yesterday said that was "an unfortunate remark."

She called Abdel-Rahman himself "a remarkable man," and said, "Yes, I would do it again, but I would do it differently."

Stewart said even though she represents clients who are reviled, "I don't do cops who kill kids on the streets of Brooklyn."

She should be tossed in prison to carry out her well-deserved sentence immediately.

She got off lightly with a 28 month sentence because the judge thought that Stewart did a good job representing unpopular clients.

Well, that shouldn't have stopped the judge from imposing the 30 year sentence demanded by the prosecutors. She's unrepentant and had no problems ignoring agreements with the prosecution not to pass messages between her client, who was responsible for plotting terrorist attacks against the US, including the 1993 WTC bombing and the landmarks terrorist plot, and preached jihad and hatred of the US at every turn. There is zealous representation of a client, and there is breaking the law. It's a white line - and Stewart trounced it.

The court has also refused to send her to prison based on defense submissions that Stewart should receive treatment for breast cancer.

I don't have a problem with her receiving treatment for cancer - they can do it while she's serving time in prison. That she's well enough to go do this program at Hofstra (hey, if she's disbarred that should disallow the CLE for the program at Hofstra), shows the thinness of her pleadings.

The court has been overly lenient in her case.

I suspect that the only thing Stewart would do differently is that she'd be more careful in avoiding getting caught. She had no problem with assisting her client pass messages of hate and incitement to his followers.

Jammie has more.

UPDATE:
The NYT report on her appearance at Hofstra fleshes things out a bit more, and definitely supports my contention that she'd do the same thing again, so long as she was more careful to avoid being caught:

She admitted to having been “cavalier” in the way she followed certain regulations governing communications with her client, but argued that the human bond between a lawyer and client is critical to the lawyer’s role as legal adviser.

“I was representing a client, and I would do it again, but I would do it in a way that would better insulate me,” she said. Her main regret was having been unaware that the government was secretly taping her conversations with Mr. Rahman, she said.

Ms. Stewart is free on bail pending an appeal of her conviction, She was sentenced to serve 28 months in prison.

Instigator of Mass Murder Near Death

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, instigator behind the 1993 WTC bombing plot, and who was convicted for leading a cell of Islamist terrorists who wanted to blow up New York City landmarks including bridges, tunnels, is near death. Rahman had a long history of inciting others to violence.

In 1993, Rahman was charged with leading a terrorist group that orchestrated the World Trade Center bombing, the 1990 assassination of Jewish Defense League leader Rabbi Meir Kahane, as well as a foiled plot to blow up the United Nations building, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the Manhattan offices of the FBI. Rahman was convicted on these charges in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison.

He was sentenced to life without parole for his criminal acts, but that didn't stop him from trying to get his message out. His attorney, Lynne Stewart, handled that end of things, smuggling messages to his followers overseas. She too was convicted of violating her agreement with the federal prosecutors not to engage in that behavior, and was sentenced to a very lenient 28-month term in prison.

Rahman is one of the spiritual ancestors to Osama Bin Laden, and it was Rahman's followers who convinced al Qaeda to target the World Trade Center for destruction. Al Qaeda and its splinter groups continue to try and carry out attacks against those designated targets to this day.

So what's going on today? Well, Rahman has refused to take medications in the past, and his condition has gotten worse; a fact that was not mentioned in any of the recent articles. Also not mentioned is that his lawyers (including Stewart) tried to exaggerate his health woes in the past; he was said to be in rapidly failing health back in 1997.

Rahman was taken to a medical facility after spitting up blood last week. The FBI sent out a notice to law enforcement to step up their vigilance because Rahman has repeatedly stated that jihadis should strike the US if he died in US custody.

UPDATE:
The Blotter has more on his current condition (HT: Ace)

UPDATE:
Shakespeare's Sister wonders what exactly we're supposed to do with terrorists if keeping them in prison will spur more terrorists, killing them will spur more terrorists, and appeasing will spur more terrorists. It's a real good question, but if a terrorist is dead, that terrorist can't do much more, except push up daisies. The jihadis are always going to find excuses, but if you eliminate enough of the leaders and theological lunatics who call others to violence, you might have a fighting chance.

The Counterterrorism Blog reminds readers that Rahman was able to gain entry to the US on a tourist visa despite being on a terror watch list and notes the ongoing problems with the visa program.

A few other people have taken note of the lingering existence of such a vile creature as Rahman: Hot Air, Anti-Idiotiarian Rottweiler, Wizbang, Sensible Mom, Noisyroom, The Jawa Report, Residual Forces, The Political Pit Bull, Wake Up America.

Technorati: rahman, blind sheikh, wtc, al qaeda, muslim brotherhood, jersey city,

Skilling's Sentenced and Other Musings

Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison Monday for his role in the fraud at Enron that brought down the nation’s seventh-largest company and came to stand as a symbol for an era of corporate fraud in America. Judge Sim Lake announced the sentence in a packed courtroom in the federal courthouse in Houston.

Skilling was convicted in May on 19 counts of fraud, insider trading and conspiracy while chief executive at Enron. More than 4,000 Enron employees lost their jobs - and many their life savings - when the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001. Investors lost billions.

Jeff Skilling, CEO of the now defunct energy company Enron, was sentenced to 24 years. James Joyner thinks the sentence was probably appropriate given the amount of damage that he and his company did to the nation in its swindling investors and playing fast and loose with the rules.

It's interesting to note that Skilling got 24 years, while Lynne Stewart, who actually undermined US national security by passing communications from convicted and incarcerated terrorists to their followers overseas, was sentenced to just 28 months (and she's intent upon appealing that decision). In Skilling's case, I think the judge got it right.

The judicial system still has a chance to get the Stewart case right, but awaits the decision on appeal.

Technorati: skilling, enron, ken lay, jeff+skilling, lynne stewart, justice, law.

Stewart Sentencing Reaction

Quite a few folks are extremely unhappy with the slap on the wrist delivered by Judge John Koeltl to Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of providing material support to a foreign terrorist group. She aided her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his overseas minions, and may have led to deaths overseas through such communications as they called for a renewal of the conflict between Rahman's followers and the Egyptian government.

For all this, she got all of 28 months. It's an injustice, and comes nowhere near as satisfactory for the criminal acts she engaged it. This was not a matter of zealous representation. She was aiding and abetting her client in violation of an agreement with the federal government not to provide communication between her client and others outside prison.

The New York Post opines:

Though she claimed she was only acting as a zealous defender, Stewart wasn't convicted of offering legal advice. A jury - after 13 long days of deliberations, following six months of testimony - found that she had smuggled into prison a message to Rahman from terrorist Rifa'l Ahman Tara. The message asked the sheik to support renewed Islamic violence in Egypt.

Then she smuggled back out a coded dispatch that led to the dissolution of a cease-fire between Abdel-Rahman's Islamic Group and the Egyptian government.

How many innocent people were "harmed" - that is, killed - as a result of that collaboration can only be guessed. Apparently, Egyptians don't count as "victims" in Judge Koeltl's eyes.

When she took on the sheik's case, Stewart agreed to and signed rules that barred her from passing any messages to and from her client. Yet she now claims she only "tested the limits" solely to "serve my client."

On the witness stand, however, Stewart made clear that when it came to Abdel-Rahman and his murderous thugs, she was not just a legal mouthpiece - she was a zealous supporter.

And the judge thwarted the jury's intent when they convicted her of the criminal acts prosecutors had laid out in a lengthy case. What makes this all the stranger is that one of her co-defendants got 24 years for substantially the same crime, whereas Stewart got off with the slap on the wrists.

The New York Sun notes:

The right to defense counsel is enshrined in the Sixth Amendment and was strengthened by the Supreme Court in Gideon v.Wainwright. But it is a right to counsel, not a right to a post-conviction accomplice.

Stewart could be a zealous representative of her clients, but her actions went well beyond acting as a defendant's representative to taking part in criminal acts that endangered national security.

Rahman laughed at the way Stewart and her assistants (Sattar and Yoursry) smuggled in the illegal communications).

As noted yesterday, federal prosecutors are looking to appeal the light sentence.

The NYT notes the following:

But Judge Koeltl said there had been “an irreducible core of extraordinarily severe criminal conduct” in her actions on behalf of the client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind fundamentalist Islamic cleric who is serving a life sentence for plotting to bomb New York City landmarks. Ms. Stewart was convicted on Feb. 10, 2005, of conspiring to provide material aid to terrorism by smuggling the sheik’s messages encouraging violence by his militant followers in Egypt.

While agreeing that Ms. Stewart had flouted the law and deceived the government by breaking prison rules to publicize the sheik’s messages, Judge Koeltl broadly rejected the prosecutors’ portrayal of her as a serial liar and terrorist conspirator who would be a danger to society if she remained free.

She engaged in criminal conduct that undermined national security by letting a convicted terrorist communicate with his followers, and that doesn't quite rise to the level of being a danger to society? Are you kidding me? Well, the Judge does go on to say that Stewart's actions could have led to potentially lethal consequences. If that's the case, why the slap on the wrist? Why avoid meting out a more severe penalty.

The fact is that someone who ostensibly abides by the law all of their life and suddenly engages in a severe crime shouldn't be given a slap on the wrist because of all the earlier good deeds. It is but one factor to take into account, but the severity of the crime, and the potential and actual consequences of her actions demanded a far heavier sentence.

We also learn the following about her co-defendants:

Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 46, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for negotiating by telephone with a follower of the sheik’s who was an associate of Osama bin Laden’s to try to bring an end to a cease-fire by Mr. Abdel Rahman’s group in Egypt. Mr. Sattar also wrote and released a statement he called a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for the killing of Jews. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence.

The third co-defendant, Mohamed Yousry, 51, Ms. Stewart’s Arabic translator in her discussions with the sheik, was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison.

Of those sentences, Sattar's appears to be the most appropriate. Yousry's sentence also appears to be on the light side, though the question remains what sentencing guidelines were followed.

For all the discussion on the matter, I have not seen much in the way of discussion on what the sentencing guidelines were in this case. I noted yesterday certain provisions that would have suggested a minimum sentence of 5+ years per count for Stewart.

Sentencing Day

Greets and saluts from the bright and crisp NYC metro area. We're supposed to hear today about the sentencing of Leftist moonbat Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of passing secrets from her convicted terrorist clients to their minions here in the US and overseas.

She's been trying to play the leniency card, noting that she's being treated for breast cancer, as though that somehow mitigates the fact that she damaged US national security by violating agreements made with the federal government not to do what she did.

I'm hoping the book is thrown her way.

It's one thing to claim that you're zealously representing your clients. It's quite another to actively break the law and threaten national security by passing communications from your terrorist clients to foreign nationals who are using those communications to rally others to jihad.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey notes that Stewart is also trying to play up that she acted irrationally and wasn't in control of her emotions, which is hogwash considering that she was caught on tape laughing it up with her co-conspirators and the convicted terrorists. She knew exactly what she was doing, and this is nothing but a last gasp chance at not spending the rest of her life behind bars. She'd like people to think she was a patsy, but the facts of the case belie that point.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin and Hot Air are both covering the proceedings. Also, Sister Toldjah has updates.

UPDATE:
Still no word on the sentencing, but others are weighing in on Stewart's latest attempts at swaying the judge. Confederate Yankee is not moved.

The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog weighs in as well and thinks the judge will rely on the sentencing guidelines, a portion of which I have cited below:

§2M5.3. Providing Material Support or Resources to Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations or For a Terrorist Purpose
(a) Base Offense Level: 26
(b) Specific Offense Characteristic
(1) If the offense involved the provision of (A) dangerous weapons; (B)
firearms; (C) explosives; (D) funds with the intent, knowledge, or reason
to believe such funds would be used to purchase any of the items
described in subdivisions (A) through (C); or (E) funds or other material
support or resources with the intent, knowledge, or reason to believe they
are to be used to commit or assist in the commission of a violent act,
increase by 2 levels.
(c) Cross References
(1) If the offense resulted in death, apply §2A1.1 (First Degree Murder) if the
death was caused intentionally or knowingly, or §2A1.2 (Second
Degree Murder) otherwise, if the resulting offense level is greater than
that determined above.
(2) If the offense was tantamount to attempted murder, apply §2A2.1 (Assault
with Intent to Commit Murder; Attempted Murder), if the resulting
offense level is greater than that determined above.

Since Stewart was convicted of providing material support to foreign terrorist groups (a level 26 offense), the sentence appears to range anywhere from 63-78 months all the way up to 120-150 months per count (that's from Chapter 5, Part A of the Sentencing Guideline (Nov. 2005)). That's a range of 5+ years all the way up to 10 years per count.


Others blogging: Blue Crab Boulevard and Outside the Beltway (who calls Stewart's actions treasonous).

UPDATE:
Six Meat Buffet isn't pulling punches on Stewart's trechary. Stop the ACLU provides a roundup. Brainster picks up on some of Stewart's supporters, and their anti-Bush, pro-terror stance. Argghhh! notes that if Stewart was to be the media martyr, then she better do the time.

Tammy Bruce and Macranger want the key thrown away. 30 years, demanded by the prosecutors, isn't quite life, but it's pretty close.

Meanwhile, the Leftists think that you should stand up for Stewart and her treasonous activities. It's a principled stand against the Bush Administration. Or so that line of thinking (if you can call it that) goes. Because her conviction isn't about her own actions, and undermining US national security, but the US government going too far.

Her supporters would like you to think that Stewart has already been hit with the harshest punishment, the inability to defend clients. Well, that is and was just the starting point. Stewart undermined national security, and the conviction is clear proof of that. Her shifting excuses after the conviction show that she is doing everything imaginable to avoid the harsh sentence that she richly deserves.

UPDATE:
TWENTY EIGHT MONTHS. Yes, you read that right. That's all she got for undermining US national security. Via CNN.

UPDATE:
Here's more details on the convictions and sentencing.

The indictment against Stewart, Yousry and Sattar was brought by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002.

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

Koeltl said he departed from the federal sentencing guidelines for Sattar 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.

This is nothing but a slap on the wrist for these criminal activities. And yet, this is the kind of thing that the Left believes should dominate our handling of terrorism related issues - put it in the hands of the courts, not Congress or the Executive. The court got this one wrong. Yousry's sentence was not announced at the time of these releases.

Bet on Stewart being quite the draw on her release from prison in little over two years.

UPDATE:
So what sentencing guideline did the judge rely upon in sentencing Stewart? Also, why the discrepancy between Sattar's sentence and Stewarts. Both were convicted of the same crime, and Stewart's presence was what enabled Sattar to transmit the information from Rahman to his overseas minions.

UPDATE:
This slap on the wrists is not sitting well with quite a few folks.

Don Surber:

Stewart was not a lefty lawyer beguiled by danger. Her legal career was built on defending people who sought the violent overthrow of America. Past clients include members of the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. To Hays, Stewart is merely a person who will “question authority and defend unpopular figures.”

Yes, people who want to overthrow the nation through violence aren’t very popular. And the grandmas who help them deserve lengthy terms in prison.

Amen to that.

In the Bullpen wonders what would have happened if the defendant was an Arab American. I'd suggest look across the docket and see Sattar. He got 24 years for substantially the same criminal charges.

Stop the ACLU, Hot Air are not happy campers either.

Others blogging, and registering similar responses: Texas Rainmaker, Blue Star Chronicles, Ace of Spades, and FFDB.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey notes that this is yet another reason to not rely upon the law enforcement model of fighting terrorism.

Others blogging: Clarity and Resolve, Sam Houston, Discarded Lies, Left Wing=Hate, AJ Strata, Tinkerty Tonk, Bullwinkle Blog, Blogs for Bush, Environmental Republican, Cake or Death, California Yankee, and Freedom Folks.

UPDATE:
Stewart is appealing the case, and will remain out of prison on bail, pending the hearing. Prosecutors were extremely disappointed in the judge's reduction in the sentence, and are considering an appeal of their own.

Technorati: lynne stewart, terrorism.

Pleading for Leniency

In a far cry from her earlier defiant tone in claiming that she was only zealously representing her terrorist clients, Lynne Stewart is now pleading for leniency as her sentencing is upon her.

After a trial of more than seven months, Ms. Stewart was convicted in February 2005 of providing aid to terrorism. Her sentencing has been repeatedly postponed because of her treatments for breast cancer, which she first discovered last November.

Ms. Stewart sent the letter on Tuesday to the judge in the case, John G. Koeltl of Federal District Court in Manhattan, appealing to him for leniency when he decides her sentence. The sentencing is now set for Oct. 16, and prosecutors, citing “a pattern of purposeful and willful” criminal conduct, have asked for a prison term of 30 years. Lawyers for Ms. Stewart, who is 66, have asked the judge to spare her any prison time.

The somber letter is the first time since she was convicted that Ms. Stewart has addressed herself directly to the judge to explain her actions, rather than allowing her lawyers to speak for her.

Her argument is strikingly different from her testimony during the trial, when she admitted no wrongdoing and confidently defended her provocative legal strategies in her defense of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a fundamentalist Islamic cleric from Egypt who is serving a life sentence for a thwarted 1993 plot to bomb New York landmarks.

Now Ms. Stewart admits that she intentionally broke strict rules that barred the sheik from communicating with his followers outside the prison, when she conveyed messages from him to the press in June 2000. But she insists that she “tested the limits” of the law only as a zealous lawyer, and never intended to help the sheik’s terrorist followers, whose goals she did not share.

For those who think that the war on terror is a law enforcement action, consider the ramifications of doing so when it will be left to the whims of lawyers and judges to determine whether terrorists are convicted of crimes of which they're accused, and the failure to obtain convictions because the evidence might not be to the criminal legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt may lead to the release of terrorists to try again, or produce sentencing that leads to these terrorists' releases where they can again commit acts of terror. The law enforcement approach puts the war on terror in the hands of the courts, not the executive or legislative branches, both of which have the power (particularly the executive) to fight a war on terror including killing terrorists operating against the US overseas before they can hit targets within the US.

Holland Tunnel Bomb Plot Disrupted

The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.

The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina, sources said. They also wanted to attack subways and other tunnels.

Counterterrorism officials are alarmed by the "lone wolf" terror plot because they allegedly got a pledge of financial and tactical support from Jordanian associates of top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before he was killed in Iraq, a counterterrorism source told The News.

It's not clear, however, if any cash or assistance was delivered.

The News has learned that at the request of U.S. officials, authorities in Beirut arrested one of the alleged conspirators, identified as Amir Andalousli, in recent months. Agents were scrambling yesterday to try to nab other suspects, sources said.

Some folks, like Ron Kuby are latching on to the fact that such a terror plot could not result in the kind of harm that the terrorists imagined - it is simply impossible for the flooding of the Holland Tunnel to cause flooding in Lower Manhattan. This notion is simply irrelevant.

Consider the target. The Holland Tunnel, opened in 1927, is a critical part of the NYC Metro area transportation infrastructure. The destruction of the tunnel in a terrorist attack would mean the loss of life for hundreds of people, and thousands would be injured - especially if occurring during rush hour. The damage would cost billions to repair, and the local economies in both New York and New Jersey would be severely impacted.

The other piece of information that is worrisome is that the terrorists sought out not just the Holland Tunnel, but other tunnels and subways for attacks as well.

In fact, this disrupted plot mirrors the NYC landmark bomb plot attempted by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman's followers to succeed where his 1993 WTC bombers failed. That plot included targeting the UN Headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the GWB, PATH tunnels, and the Javits federal building, along with assassinations of NY Senator Al D'Amato and Egyptian President Mubarak.

The terrorists would not have to succeed in flooding Lower Manhattan in order to succeed in creating a mass casualty attack, damaging the local economy, and causing billions in damage. Downplaying such threats is a dangerous game, and the terrorists have repeatedly shown themselves willing to attack high profile targets.

UPDATE:
CNN is reporting that their sources are informing them that the Holland Tunnel wasn't specifically named in the threat. Interesting. It will be interesting to see how the Daily News handles the news going forward. Other media outlets confirm that there was some kind of plot that US law enforcement disrupted, but the Daily News broke the story and put the Holland Tunnel out there.

The NYT also reports the terror plot discovery and that Sen. Schumer sees this as an instance where law enforcement and intel services were on the ball.

UPDATE:
Via Wizbang, apparently the tunnel threat was actually against the PATH system, which connects Lower Manhattan with New Jersey.

Update: According to Fox News Channel, the actual terror target was the NY-NJ Path Train System. The FBI will have a briefing at 1:00pm

One PATH line runs through the WTC complex - and flooding out the tunnel could flood the WTC bathtub, but not cause damage beyond that complex. A second line runs up to Herald Square (34th St.) A map of PATH stations can be found here.

Both Mrs. Lawhawk and I take the PATH system on a regular basis. I am not amused, and am not surprised. After all, terrorists have repeatedly attacked Port Authority assets. Blowing up the tunnels carrying the PATH trains is far more difficult than blowing up the vehicle tunnels - unless they were going to somehow get into the PATH workforce and infiltrate the system that way.

So, since the PATH system has been targeted, I'll reissue my call for PATH to hasten the construction of emergency exits at Christopher Street and 9th Street, which are antique deathtraps should a mass casualty attack occur at either station - there is only a single entry point into each of those two stations. There is a proposal to build the emergency exits, but that apparently still remains in a planning stage.

Others blogging: LaShawn Barber, Confederate Yankee, Blue Crab Boulevard, Gateway Pundit, LGF, Meryl Yourish.

UPDATE:
Still others blogging: Hot Air - who provides a link to the Fox News story.

Fox News also reports that while there are no direct al Qaeda links, there were some financial links between associates of Zarqawi and those involved in the plot here.

U.S. officials are not confirming any Al Qaeda link, although the New York Daily News, which reported that the attack was to focus on the Holland Tunnel, said the would-be terrorists allegedly had a pledge of financial and tactical support from Jordanian associates of top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before he was killed in Iraq.

Wouldn't it be nice to know whether we could trace those terrorists' financial dealings around the world?AJ Strata speculates whether the NYT leak of the SWIFT program jeopardized the investigation into this plot. I'd wager that it did. So does the American Spectator. These terrorists need money to make their attacks happen, and if the SWIFT program was compromised, those terrorists just got a break - courtesy of the NYT.

CNN's latest version of their story provides that a Lebanese official notes that the Holland Tunnel and a bridge were targeted by the jihadis.

UPDATE:
Ranting Profs' Cori Dauber notes that Peter King claims to have known of this investigation for months but couldn't use it to prod the feds for more DHS funding for counter terror programs. Well, there's a good reason to keep quiet about such things - so to make sure that we can nab every one of the terrorists involved in the plot, but thanks to the NYT, that appears to have been short circuited.

Others blogging: Expose the Left, Stop the ACLU, Below the Beltway, and Outside the Beltway.

UPDATE:
Once again, this whole story revolves around leaks of information about the ongoing war effort. Was this leaked in response to the fact that one of the surveillance measures - the SWIFT program - was outed by the NYT, and the continuing investigation was thwarted? Good question. No clear answers.

What we do know is that one Amir al-Andalousi was arrested by Lebanese authorities for plotting a terror attack in NYC. He has links to Zarqawi and al Qaeda.

Flopping Aces notes with some irony the fact that Schumer has suddenly realized the benefit of listening in on terrorist communications and infiltrating terrorist hangouts online. Also, he notes that the FBI pretty much directly links this plot to al Qaeda.

Also blogging: Blogs for War, Vital Perspective, Hugh Hewitt, Rob Port, and The Real Ugly American.

Point Five adds a bit of levity to the matter.

UPDATE:
Seems that some folks are still not quite getting it. Glenn Greenwald, that would be you. You, and the other like minded folks you run with, think that the fact that the FBI uncovered a plot to blow up PATH, subways, and tunnels around NYC in its infancy isn't quite the threat that the right side of the 'sphere is making it out to be. Sorry, but that's a serious misreading of history. And that's not getting into the little spat between you and Charles for misreading his post.

The 1993 WTC bombers didn't just seek to blow up the WTC killing thousands. Their spiritual leader, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman exhorted his minions to jihad and to destroy NYC area landmarks. It was on the discovery of that plot that Rahman and others were arrested - and Rahman is serving life in prison for the conspiracy to plan and commit those attacks. Even his lawyer, Lynne Stewart, is going to be doing hard time, because she was passing secrets between Rahman and his followers in violation of a gag order.

Today's bomb plot mirrors the NYC landmarks attacks - which is what I noted in my initial posting. And this attack planning mirrors the 9/11 attacks in many ways, including using as many as 20 suicide bombers to blow up in and around the system.

The specific target was the PATH commuter trains that run in a tunnel under the Hudson River into New York City.

“This is a plot that would have involved martyrdom, explosives and certain of the tubes that connect New Jersey with lower Manhattan,” said Mark Mershon, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI New York Field Office. “We’re not discussing the modality behind, beyond that.”

But law enforcement officials say the plotters had already accessed detailed blueprints and drawings of the PATH tunnels, available on the internet.

And like the London bombers, the plan was to load backpacks with explosives.

All 15 to 20 bombers were to board one car and detonate when the train was under the river, according to officials.

“There’s no question that they are vulnerable. With the right amount of explosives, the tunnel could be compromised,” said Gerry Hauer, former Director of New York City’s Office of Emergency Management and now an ABC News consultant.

Technorati: hammoud, tunnel terror plot, nyc, PATH, bloomberg, subways, holland tunnel.

Cause Celebre

Until yesterday, the cause celebre flavor of the month was convicted mass murderer Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed last nite by the State of California after 25 years on Death Row. Tookie murdered four people in cold blood (Albert Owens, Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang, and Ye-Chen Lin). The media beat down doors to the Hollywood types who for reasons that defy logic and reasoning made him the poster child for all that is wrong with the death penalty. They claimed that he should receive clemency because he had changed his life around behind bars. Of course, the fact that he was in the most secure part of San Quentin prison because he was continually making trouble for inmates and corrections officers ever since he got to prison was overlooked by the Hollywood types.

The usual suspects lined up to get their 15 minutes, including Jesse Jackson, who couldn't even recall the names of any of the four victims who Tookie murdered. That was an enlightening moment of course. Honoring and assisting a mass murderer while ignoring the victims. Where have we seen that before?

Now, we have a report today that Clara Barton HS in NYC sought to invite convicted terrorist supporter Lynne Stewart to talk at an after-school program at the school. Why would an invitation even be extended by the student government in the first place? Do they not know what Stewart did or who she represented in the process of breaking federal law?

The decision to cancel a high-school lecture in Brooklyn by a civil-rights lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists has sparked a debate over free speech between the students who invited her and the administrators who said the invitation was inappropriate.

The issue arose at Clara Barton HS in Crown Heights last month, when the school's principal canceled the after-school lecture by Lynne Stewart two days before it was supposed to occur at the school's auditorium.

Stewart, 66, was convicted earlier this year of providing material support to terrorists by relaying messages to militant followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind cleric serving a life prison sentence for his role in a 1993 plot to blow up five city landmarks.

The public school's student government president, Gardith Edouard, 17, said her classmates were outraged that administrators canceled the lecture.

"The students wanted to hear what she had to say," Edouard said.

Is it possible that the outrage is just slightly misdirected? The school is supposed to be a learning environment, and inviting a convicted terrorist supporter to speak doesn't exactly teach students anything. It gives a convicted felon a forum that they should otherwise not have. Stewart is unrepentant over her providing material support for terrorists by passing information to terrorist groups in Egypt. Terrorists whose sole goal is to attack US interests around the world.

In fact, I suspect that it was the parents of some students who sought to have Stewart speak, not the students themselves, who probably have never heard of Stewart in the first place.

If the students want to see outrage, how about talking to the families of the six people who were murdered by Rahman's followers in the 1993 WTC bombing? The six who were murdered: John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Steven Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado and Monica Rodriguez Smith, who was pregnant. More than 1,000 others were injured in the harrowing escape from the towers that quickly filled with choking smoke.

UPDATE:
Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has more.

Catch and Release

Ace is reporting on the fact that one of the hotel suicide bombers may have been released by the US, although it's unclear whether it's simply another person with the same name.

U.S. forces detained and later released an Iraqi with a name that matched one of three suicide bombers who struck Amman hotels, killing 57 others, the U.S. military said Monday.

Jordanian authorities said Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23, was part of the al-Qaida in Iraq squad that bombed the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAD and Day's Inn hotels on Wednesday.

Catch and release doesn't work. Neither does revolving door justice, which is how Zarqawi managed to get out of Jordanian prison. The only way to stop the terrorists is to make sure that the ones we catch never get out of prison. You have to cut off their communications with the outside (no Lynne Stewart for you).

At the same time we're hearing about Ali being a catch and release, the WaPo has an op-ed that comes out against the Graham Amendment that would essentially suspend habeas corpus for detainees, which was found under Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The Congressional action, if adopted as law would overturn the Hamdi decision by the Supreme Court, which itself disregarded precedence on granting rights to enemy combatants.

We're in the midst of a war, and we've got some lawyers trying to provide access to the courts for enemy combatants and others captured on the battlefield. There are going to be a few instances where the individual really did nothing wrong and a full investigation reveals that there was no terror links, but the other possibility has already been a reality - releasing individuals after investigations who turn out to be mass murdering terrorists. And, if a legal case is to be made for one 'deserving' individual to have access to the courts, that will quickly be seized upon to help those who aren't deserving. Terrorists captured on the battlefield are lucky that they're alive. They're lucky they have 3 squares a day. That's more than can be said for any of their victims.

Others noticing the catch and release problem:
The Jawa Report, Gally Slaves

Which side would you rather be on?

Breaking News: Jury Finds Port Authority Negligent in 1993 Bombing

The six-person jury ruled that the Port Authority, the agency that owned the World Trade Center, was negligent by not properly maintaining the parking garage, where terrorists detonated more than a half-ton of explosives in a Ryder van. It said the negligence was a ``substantial factor'' in the allowing the bombing to occur.

The jury took just one day to reach its verdict. Several separate trials will now be held to determine money damages.

As the NYT notes:

At the heart of the case was a 1985 Port Authority security report, which said the garage was vulnerable to attack.

Eerily prescient, it held that car bombs were "fast becoming the weapon of choice for European terrorists," and that the public parking area in the trade center was "a definite security risk" because a vehicle filled with explosives could easily enter and park there.

The report recommended closing the public parking area of the garage, and suggested providing guards at entrances, restricting pedestrian entry and conducting random searches of vehicles.

The defense said the Port Authority had nonetheless decided not to close the garage because officials believed the risk of a bombing was low in the garage, compared with the shopping and pedestrian areas. Lawyers for the agency also argued that the bombing was not preventable, and that Port Authority should therefore not be held responsible for the deaths and injuries.

What's missing in these other pieces is the key issue - determining the liability of the various parties involved in the suit. And The New York Sun provides that tidbit - noting that the jury found the Port Authority 68% liable for the bombing. In other words, the Port Authority was twice as responsible for the terrorist act as the terrorists themselves. My guess is that the jury decided that the Port Authority was the deep pockets in this case, and acted accordingly. They saw the 1985 memo and figured that the Port Authority should have closed the parking garage, as if that would somehow stopped the terrorists from considering attacking the World Trade Center complex. Back at that time, it would not have been out of the realm of possibility for the terrorists to have driven the truck bomb into the lobby of one of the towers and blown itself up - trapping thousands and causing tremendous mayhem. Yet, the devious nature of the terrorists and their willingness to utilize all kinds of attacks was insufficient to sway the jury otherwise.

Six people were murdered, and over 1,000 were injured in the 1993 bombing. The terrorists involved in that attack are being held in prison. Their spiritual leader, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was represented by Lynne Stewart, who herself was found guilty earlier this year of passing on messages to Rahman's followers in violation of agreements with prosecutors. Her conviction was upheld earlier today.

That group of terrorists begat the 9/11 terrorists, who sought to complete what the 1993 bombers could not accomplish - to destroy the World Trade Center.

And this trial will have repercussions on the 9/11 trials that will eventually make their way to court. The government had arranged a victims compensation fund to resolve potential litigation and most families did agree to give up the right to sue the government entities involved, including the Port Authority, but a few decided that preserving the right to sue was important. Some of the same legal theories will be pursued in any trial relating to 9/11 as with the 1993 attack.

UPDATE:
The Port Authority plans to appeal the verdict. No kidding. You knew that was coming considering that the jury found that the Port Authority was more liable for the bombing than the terrorists themselves.

UPDATE 10/27:
Suitably Flip finds the decision abhorrent.

UPDATE 10/27:
Ace's Dr. Reo Symes wonders why the Port Authority got tagged with 68% responsibility for the terrorist bombing that killed six. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering that. After all, it's not like the Port Authority was alone in operating parking garages under or near major landmarks. And before the 1993 attacks, few if any provided the kind of security measures that became the norm after the attack.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, terrorism, abdul rahman.

Lynne Stewart's Conviction Upheld

No soup for you! Stewart's conviction for aiding and abetting terrorists whom she represented by passing messages to cohorts outside the country against her agreement with the federal government was upheld by a federal court judge.

The defense had argued for a new trial based on a letter from the anonymous juror — written six weeks after the trial — claiming she was terrorized into agreeing to the conviction and had feared for her life.

Judge John Koeltl found there was not enough proof that the juror was actually intimidated.

Stewart faces up to 30 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists and filing false statements while she represented blind terror Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.

Stewart has claimed she was only engaged in "zealous representation" of her client and was constitutionally protected when she issued public statements on his behalf.

But Koeltl said the cleric used his communications from prison to participate in a terrorist conspiracy.

Again, this couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. She knowingly aided and abetted a bunch of terrorists who had previously attacked the US in the 1993 WTC bombings and are committed to further attacks against the US.

Lynne Stewart Seeks Mistrial

Grasping at straws, Lynne Stewart is submitting papers to obtain a mistrial in her conviction on aiding terrorists. She claims one of the jurors failed to disclose that they were biased against criminal defendants.

These kinds of papers are submitted all the time, and the success rate is pretty low.

The documents also show that a different juror approached Ms. Stewart's lawyers after the verdict to say she had been intimidated by other jurors during their deliberations and was not clear-headed when she voted to convict Ms. Stewart and two co-defendants.

Ms. Stewart's lawyers have asked the judge, John G. Koeltl, to conduct an inquiry about that juror's misgivings.

This is a far more serious charge, and will need to be investigated.

Do the Crime; Do the Time

Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic-language translator, has been practicing for life in a prison cell. He closes himself into small spaces to meditate and combs through his library for nonpolitical books he supposes his keepers will allow him to read.

But he still cannot quite believe that prison is where he is going.

After working for nearly a decade as a translator for Lynne F. Stewart, a New York defense lawyer, Mr. Yousry, 49, was convicted along with her on Feb. 10 in Manhattan federal court of providing material aid to terrorism and conspiring to deceive the government. Now free on bail and awaiting sentencing, which is set for Sept. 30, he faces as much as 20 years behind bars.

Although months have passed since the verdict, Mr. Yousry remains shocked and baffled by it. Throughout the grueling nine-month trial, Mr. Yousry and his lawyers were convinced that he had a strong chance of acquittal.

The charges hinged on Ms. Stewart's provocative legal strategy on behalf of a convicted terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which she defied a prison rule that restricted communications by releasing messages from him to the international press and to his militant followers in Egypt.

Mr. Yousry's lawyers, David Ruhnke and David Stern, showed in court that he took no actions on his own to help the sheik politically and did his translation work based on instructions he received from Ms. Stewart and other lawyers for Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Muslim cleric who is serving a life sentence in federal prison for conspiring to bomb landmarks in New York City.

Mr. Yousry's case seemed particularly solid, because unlike Ms. Stewart, he never signed documents pledging to abide by prison regulations. Mr. Yousry's lawyers specified that it was up to Ms. Stewart, as the lawyer, to see that her staff complied with the rules.

Sorry, but if you know that someone is violating the rules, and then do nothing about it, you too can be part of the crime. I have no sympathy for Yousry, except that he thought his lawyers could get him acquitted. That wasn't going to happen, not with the nearly airtight case against Stewart and his 10 years of work for Stewart before then. His best chance would have been to cut a deal on the case.

Andrew Dember, an assistant United States attorney, assailed the defense arguments as "nonsense!" in his closing summation. "He knew the restrictions, what they consisted of, and he was aware of the fact that he was doing wrong because of those restrictions. He knew full well that he was bound by the restrictions himself."

He added later, "Clearly, obviously, Ms. Stewart and Mr. Yousry know what they're doing is improper, illegal, criminal."

Saddam's Defense Team Reshuffled

That's right, I'm citing to an al Jazeera story, but then again if they've got the story, you should know it. It's not like the US media is going to go out of its way to give you this kind of information.

It appears that the Saddam Hussein defense team in the case against him for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity is being reshuffled.

The head of Saddam Hussein's defense committee has turned over full control of the legal team to a group led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Lawyer Ziad Khasawneh, the Jordanian chief of the defense committee, said Wednesday that he contacted Saddam's wife, Sajida Khairallah, and informed her about his decision to quit the legal team.

Khasawneh also said that the committee might be dissolved.

Saddam's legal team was formed in Amman in June 2004. It includes 2,500 volunteers and more than 22 lead lawyers, who come from several countries, including the United States, France, Jordan and Libya .

The team, which includes former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, has been unable to meet with Saddam face-to-face.

Ramsey Clark is a former US Attorney General whose anti-Americanism reaches new lows on a daily basis. Among his acolytes is his prodigy Lynne Stewart, who is serving prison time for conspiring with another terorrist by passing information from the terrorist to those outside prison in violation of agreements with the government.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed has more.

Lynne Stewart's Sentencing Date Pushed Back To September

While her sentencing date was pushed back to September, one of the jurors who found her guilty had no problem speaking his mind about Stewart:

Juror No. 8, who resides near Ground Zero, staunchly defended the Feb. 10 guilty verdict as a civic duty.

"We were sending a message. We were intending to send a message," he said. "Do not break the law. Do not conspire with terrorists."

Juror No. 8 and his fellow panel members convicted Stewart of being a material witness to terrorism, fraud and filing a false statement while she represented imprisoned blind Egyptian terror cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

She faces 30 years in prison for her crimes. Here's hoping that she receives the maximum sentence.

Lynne Stewart: Featured Speaker at New School?!

Lynne Stewart, convicted on federal charges of aiding and abetting terrorists who she represented communicate with associates outside prison, claims that she was a martyr at a 'rally' at the New School University in New York.

The rally, which took place in a student conference room in a university building on West 13th Street, was intended as a show of support for Stewart, death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado who compared WTC workers killed on 9/11 to Nazi Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.

Only a handful of supporters showed up for the "rally," easily outnumbered by the media.

Let's see, we've got a convicted cop killer, a convicted felon who assisted terrorists, and a professor who committed academic fraud and continually misrepresents his background as well as makes outrageous statements that are beyond the pale.

This is the group with whom Stewart wants to be associated with. This is the group that the student group, Students for a Democratic Society, wanted to be on the same agenda.

Let's be clear here. This isn't an issue of free speech, but one of intellecutal honesty. The individuals that this group was 'honoring' are convicted felons and frauds. This is who they hold up as icons to honor and whose causes they seek to further. Put into practice, that means enabling terrorists to continue their bloody goals of killing people around the world, permitting cop-killers to get away with murder, and to excuse academic fraud.

UPDATE:
2:15 PM 03/09/2005 - Welcome to the Lizard Minions of Little Green Footballs. I am thankful for the footballing. Poke around and stay awhile. There's probably a bit of blogging goodness for everyone here.

Can't Change Stripes

It isn't much of a surprise that imprisoned terrorists at a SuperMax facility in Colorado were communicating with terrorists on the outside and never stopped advocating terrorism. These particular terrorists happened to be among those represented by former New York lawyer, Lynne Stewart, who was convicted for violating an agreement with the federal government not to pass conversations to third parties.

So the men were sent to America's most secure federal prisons, eventually ending up at Supermax in Colorado, supposedly unable to do further harm.

Or so we thought. Letters and articles obtained by NBC News show that while behind bars, the 1993 bombers continued their terrorist activities. They wrote letters to other suspected terrorists and brazenly praised Osama bin Laden in Arabic newspapers.

According to confidential Spanish court documents obtained by NBC, at least 14 letters went back and forth between the World Trade Center bombers and a Spanish terror cell.

What is surprising is that the federal government did nothing to stop the communications as soon as they became aware of this. Terrorists will trade tactics, receive encouragement and solicit advice on how to act and behave.

This is a colossal failure on the part of the Justice Department to underestimate the lengths to which these terrorists would go to initiate terrorist attacks around the world and domestically. We have no idea what else was spawned by this group of convicted terrorists, but we must demand that these individuals do not have any contact with the outside world that even hints at the possibility of terrorism.

Stewart Verdict: Not So Complicated After All

While those who were on the other side of the bench actually liked her, what Lynne Stewart did was beyond the pale, and she rightfully deserved the verdict rendered. One person who had very close contact with her for a long period of time was the prosecutor on the Sheik Rahman case, Andrew McCarthy. He wrote:

Unlike many "activist" lawyers for whom the very notion of negotiating with the government is treasonous to what passes for their belief systems, Lynne was eminently reasonable and practical. She was open-minded about agreements ("stipulations" in the lexicon of litigators) that would narrow the case down to the matters that were actually in dispute. When she gave her word on something, she honored it — she never acted as if she thought one was at liberty to be false when dealing with the enemy.

One might think this was just commonsense rather than ethics. Lawyers, after all, are well aware of the often heavy price to be paid with the court if they are caught being dishonest. But I never thought this was the case with Lynne. I always had the sense that, even though I was for her present purposes the embodiment of the enemy, it mattered to her what I thought about her personal morality. In point of fact, I thought it was crazy quilt. I couldn't square the lawyer who so amiably conducted herself within the rules with the rebel who so ostentatiously sought to supplant the rules. All I knew, though, was that when she made a representation to me within the four-corners of a very long and combative trial, I thought I could take it to the bank. In twenty years, I have known too many adversaries about whom that could not be said.

Perhaps that's why I can feel justice but no joy is seeing her brought low. The worst part, for me, is the revelation that lying to the government was at the core of her crimes. In order to get into the jailhouse, she gave her word that she needed access to the Sheikh for one purpose, viz., to provide legal assistance, and then willfully carried out a far different purpose: viz., to enable Abdel Rahman to continue influencing the barbaric Egyptian terror organization which assassinated President Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel, sought President Hosni Mubarak's murder, savagely slaughtered nearly 60 tourists in Luxor as an extortionate demand for the Sheikh's release, and has sedulously busied itself toward toppling the secular government for a quarter century.

These were bold-faced, nefarious lies. To the profession of lawyering, they should be seen as lies of the most despicable kind. For Stewart later claimed that her mendacity was excusable as a part of zealously representing a client. What she did, however, formed no part of what an attorney does.

For that reason, much of what is being said by defense lawyers in the wake of her conviction is welcome — and much, regrettably, is ridiculous. Being a defense lawyer for an accused person, even the most universally reviled accused person, is a most honorable and necessary endeavor in any society based on the rule of law. In the eyes of the trial court, a defendant stands innocent of charges until a jury finds otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the constitutional mission of defense counsel to ensure, with all their considerable skill and passion, that this accused gets the full benefit of every advantage and every doubt to which our system entitles him.

But that is to say, every advantage and every doubt within the rules. As some of New York City's most distinguished defense professionals explained to the Times after Stewart's conviction, there are lines between proper advocacy and misconduct, and they are well known. Here, Lynne was so far over them that, to be blunt, it is insulting for her and her allies to suggest otherwise. Yet, they thoughtlessly cavil about a Justice Department witch-hunt against lawyers who take on the defense of the most repulsive criminals and terrorists. It's blatant nonsense — and they know better.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees counsel to an "accused." When Abdel Rahman was actually an accused, from 1993 until 1996, he was the recipient of exquisite due process — including three lawyers and publicly-subsidized legal and investigative assistance. The government never came close to interfering in any of this. After he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the succeeding three years brought Abdel Rahman's appeals to the court of appeals and the Supreme Court. Again, numerous lawyers convened with "his holiness" as needed, and they filed voluminous briefs on his behalf. The appeals were rejected. At that point, his conviction was final. He was no longer, in any sense, an accused. He was no longer presumed innocent. He was a duly convicted terrorist who had a unique, authoritative stature among America's enemies.

Nonetheless, in our generous system, he was still permitted access to counsel (although not a right to have the public pay for it). For a time, those lawyers were empowered file what's called a "collateral attack" if they could come up with some argument that Abdel Rahman's fundamental rights had been violated during the trial. They never did that. They could also have challenged the conditions of his confinement, but to do so would have been specious — this ward, with his many maladies, is among the most conscientiously cared for. Beyond that, the Sheikh didn't need legal services anymore.

Because he is evil, what he needed and wanted were co-conspirators to help him stay relevant in the high councils of jihadist terror. That's what Lynne Stewart agreed to be. That's not lawyer-work. And that's what the government interfered with. For attorneys currently representing accused terrorists to pretend that the Stewart case forebodes ill for their ability to function as traditional defense counsel is hollow posturing.

Ironically, the Lynne Stewart I knew expressed no such reservations. Once, in a break in the action, I found myself in conversation with her, us both leaning on the rail along the jury box. I don't remember now exactly what precipitated it, but we were talking about how cases get settled and whether this one ever would. She pointed into the jury box — all empty seats at the time, but her gesture had me imagining our diligent jurors sitting there — and she said she had faith that the best thing to do was to get the dispute into the hands of "these good people" and let them do the job we had chosen them to do. In all those months, I never thought she had an argument that would actually persuade those good people to see things her way. But the sentiment could not have been more right, and the way she expressed it could not have seemed more sincere.

Ten years later, that's how I prefer to remember her. I would see or hear from her from time-to-time after the jury convicted Abdel Rahman, and it was always the same: friendly, gracious, never a hint of raging against the machine, even though she was the public personification of rage and I an enthusiastic proponent of the machine.

There is something wrong with Lynne's brain. Obviously, she loves being a darling of the loony Left — a Left so loony it now makes common cause with theocratic, homo-phobic, misogynistic psycho-killers, since, after all, they too hate America. Nestled among this element, her humanity synapse disengages, such that she can spout about faraway terrorist kidnapping victims and other unknown civilians as legitimate targets with all the contemplative depth of a dinner companion asking you to pass the salt.

But she is not without humanity. What has happened to her here is very far from a tragedy — a tragedy is when someone unwittingly crosses the path of Abdel Rahman's ilk and is ruthlessly murdered for the great offense of being an American, or a Jew, or a Christian, or anything other than an Islamic militant. This is what Lynne Stewart promoted, and for that she must pay dearly. At 65, it may mean she pays with the rest of her life. Many will understandably celebrate that. I will pray she perceives that she has done enormous harm, and that the real civil rights she might have honored are those of the innocent victims of terror.