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Inside America

The trial of radical lawyer Lynne Stewart

"How can defendants get adequate counsel if their lawyer fears that the government is listening in on their conversations? How can defendants get proper counsel if the government tries to make their counsel its lawyer? My trial is really not about Sheikh Rahman and terrorism. It's about the future of America."

Ron Chepesiuk
The trial of Lynne Stewart, a defence attorney that the Bush administration has charged with providing aid and material support to a terrorist group, began June 22 in New York City. Stewart and her supporters say her trial is an attack on the First Amendment, the right of a defendant to effective counsel, and the principle of attorney-client privilege.
First indicted in April 2002, the aid and support allegedly happened when Stewart assisted her client, Islamic Group spiritual leader Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, in passing messages to the group in defiance of prison regulations imposed on the Sheikh and in violation of her own promises to abide by those restrictions. Sheikh Rahman was convicted for his involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The 64-year old Stewart, who has defended members of the Black Panthers and other radical groups, has taken the position that the best legal defence in her case is to mount an aggressive offence. She has energetically promoted her cause through interviews with the media, public speaking appearances and personal reports on her Internet trial weblog.
The first entry in Stewart's weblog refers to the paring down of the 500 potential jurors to 78. "That jury will decide my future and perhaps that of the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amend-
ments," Stewart wrote. "I'll be there for 4 to 6 months. Bring a cushion and bring hope, encouragement, and righteousness."
"I need to have a big mouth for this trial," Stewart explained in an interview from her home. "It's important that the public learn what's going on in
sations condemned the action. For instance, In a press release, Bruce Nestor, President of the National Lawyers Guild, said the federal indictment of New York attorney Lynne Stewart would have a chilling effect on attorney-client privilege that it will have. "Stewart is a veteran criminal
University and in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at the City University of New York (CUNY). Stewart's other co-defendant, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a Staten Island postal worker, is accused of coordinating efforts to keep Rahman in touch with his followers and co-conspirators. Being on trial
the trial from me and not through the prosecutors' statements in the press, which portray me as a messenger of terrorism." Stewart faces a maximum of forty years in jail.
The FBI made Stewart's arrest on April 12, 2002, a high profile event. Agents invaded her office and searched it for 12 hours. The media was filled with images of agents carrying off boxes of records.
Then Attorney General John Ashcroft flew to New York City to announce Stewart's indictment in a well-publicised news conference. Later, Ashcroft appeared on Late Night with David Letterman to discuss the case. Several prominent legal organi-
defence attorney who often represents both controversial causes and unpopular clients," Nestor explained. "The government seems to be singling her out as poster child for its campaign to justify the unconstitutional monitoring of conversations between lawyers and inmates. This is clearly designed to have a chilling effect on lawyers zealously representing their clients."
The trial's anonymous jury consists of eight women and four men. Asked whether she believed her trial would be fair, Stewart answered: "I can't quite bring to my lips the word 'fair' because the government is introducing evidence that's calculated to scare people. You can't show a portrait of Osama bin Laden to a courtroom and not have people get emotional. The [US] government also searched [co-defendant] Mohammed Yousry's house and found a lot of old newspapers from the early 1990s relating to alleged radical activities. The judge is allowing the clippings to be introduced into evidence. You think the first Amendment would hit in. I might have a copy of Mein Kampf that I bought in my early years because I was curious. But possessing that book doesn't reflect my outlook on life."
Mohammed Yousry is an Arabic translator who has taught at New York
with her co-defendants doesn't complicate her defence, Stewart said. "Our defence is the same," she explained. "We were working as part of a legal team that did what it thought would be best for its client."
Stewart and her co-defendants are charged with conspiracy to help the imprisoned Sheikh Rahman pass messages to his followers in violation of extraordinary restrictions called Special Administrative Measures or SAMs, which the court imposed on the Sheikh in 1997. According to the superseding indictment of November 19, 2003, Stewart is charged with conspiring to defraud the United States and with providing and concealing material support on behalf of terrorist activity. She also faces two counts of making false statements.
Stewart emphatically denied the charges and said, "Everything! did was done in the context of being [Sheikh Rahman's] lawyer. Nothing I did was by way of being part of a criminal enterprise. Everybody in the US deserves a fair trial."
At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons imposed the SAMs against Rahman. The restrictions included denying the prisoner access to mail,
telephone and visitors and prohibiting him from speaking with the media. The government feared that Rahman would use his counsel to communicate to others instructions for carrying out violent acts.
Stewart signed an attorney affirmations in 2000 and 2001 in which she promised to abide by the SAMs.
The indictment alleges that "over the past several years, Stewart has facilitated and communicated messages between her client and Islamic Group (IG) leaders around the world in violation of the SAMs." For instance, the indictment charges that Stewart allowed Yousry, who acted as the Arabic interpreter between Rahman and his attorneys, to "read letters from defendant Sattar and others regarding IG matters and to discuss with her client whether IG should continue to comply with a cease-fire that had been supported by factions within IG since 1998." Yousry then allegedly passed the message between Rahman and IG representatives regarding IG activities. Stewart is also accused of talking gibberish to distract the prison guards so they couldn't hear the conversations between Rahman and Yousry. "We have the right to distract the guards if they are eavesdropping on a conversation between a prisoner and his lawyer," Stewart said. "There is such a thing in America as attorney-client privilege." She added, "We really didn't know the government was taping our conversations."
Stewart and her numerous supporters believe that the outcome of her trial will have momentous consequences for civil liberties in the US. Michael Tyger, Lynne Stewart's attorney, assessed the case's significance. His assessment reflects the viewpoint of the legions of Americans who oppose President Bush's strategy in the war on terrorism. "For me, this case represents an opportunity to confront the Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft effort to destroy human rights and scare the
country into lurching to the right," Tyger said.
Stewart agrees. "I haven't met a criminal lawyer today who doesn't admit that they have altered their practice in some way because of the War on Terrorism," she said. "Howcan
defendants get adequate counsel if their lawyer fears that the government is listening in on their conversations? How can defendants get proper counsel if the government tries to make their counsel its lawyer? My trial is really not about Sheikh Rahman and
terrorism. It's about the future of
America."
Daily Star columnist Ron Chepesiuk is a Visiting Professor of Journalism at Chittagong University and a Research Associate with the National Defence College, Dhaka.