Government Case Called ‘Reckless’

The federal government carried out a “cruel and reckless” campaign to destroy an outspoken civil rights lawyer by whipping up fears of terrorism and falsely accusing her of conspiracy, her attorney charged Wednesday.

Michael Tigar, an attorney representing activist lawyer Lynne F. Stewart, began his closing remarks by ridiculing the government’s case against his client -- which includes charges that she smuggled secret messages from terrorists to an imprisoned Egyptian cleric, and then communicated his calls for violence to colleagues around the world.

“The government has a duty not to hype the evidence, but they’ve done just that,” said Tigar, beginning his closing arguments.

“This is a dangerous world, and that’s all the more reason not to throw words and labels around like terror or terrorism and exaggerate things.... We’re going to show that this whole case is a house of cards.”

Stewart, 65, is accused of conspiring with two other colleagues to help her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, send messages to followers in the Middle East. She is also charged with providing and concealing material support to terrorists abroad and with making false statements to the government.

Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who served as Abdel Rahman’s paralegal, is charged with conspiring to murder and kidnap people in a foreign country, and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, is accused of conspiracy and perjury. If convicted, Stewart and Yousry could face a maximum of 20 years in prison; Sattar could face life in prison.

Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric, was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks. He is serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Rochester, Minn. Although Abdel Rahman remains in isolation, he is highly influential among members of the Islamic Group, a militant organization based in Egypt.

All three defendants have denied any wrongdoing.

The trial is the first time the Bush administration has attempted to prosecute a high-profile attorney in conjunction with a terrorism case. Several civil liberties activists have said the prosecution represents a dangerous infringement on the right of attorneys to represent clients, no matter how unpopular the clients may be.

The courtroom in Lower Manhattan was packed for the closing arguments by Tigar, an American University law professor and lawyer who is best known for his defense of Terry L. Nichols, the co-defendant with Timothy J. McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

“This is the big moment, let’s go,” Stewart said quietly to a colleague moments before Tigar began his remarks.

During a six-month trial, the defendants have insisted that they were simply representing Abdel Rahman like any legal team would. They have also denied taking part in any efforts to encourage murder or kidnapping by terrorist organizations.

At the core of the government’s case is the allegation that Stewart and her legal team smuggled in messages to Abdel Rahman during a series of prison meetings in 1999 and 2000. Before the meetings, the lawyer signed Special Administration Measures forms, promising federal officials that she would not bring in such materials, nor communicate messages from Abdel Rahman to others that could lead to acts of terrorism.

Government prosecutors charged that, on one occasion, Stewart and Yousry secretly brought in a letter written to Abdel Rahman from Sattar, carrying a message in Arabic from Rifai Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group. Taha, prosecutors said, was attempting to persuade Abdel Rahman to withdraw his support for a cease-fire that was in effect at the time between the militant organization and the Egyptian government.

The pivotal moment in the case occurred in June 2000, prosecutors said, when Stewart spoke with a Reuters correspondent after a meeting with Abdel Rahman. She told him of the cleric’s decision to withdraw his support for the cease-fire.

Tigar conceded that the Special Administration Measures guidelines forbade the legal team from bringing in materials that had not been screened by federal agents. But he said Stewart had her own “good faith” interpretation of the guidelines, and concluded that they did not prevent her from bringing in “political messages” from supporters -- or communicating Abdel Rahman’s “political” views after her prison meetings with him.

The attorney pointed to previous testimony, suggesting that members of the Justice Department, which drew up the guidelines, differed over the meaning of the measures.

“If they had different views, what, pray tell, prevents Lynne Stewart from having her own view?” Tigar said.

“This isn’t an abstract discussion or deconstruction of language, folks. This is a felony charge that the government is making here.”

As to the notion that his client had encouraged violence or murder, Tigar said the government had not produced any evidence to link Stewart to such acts.

“She doesn’t speak Arabic, and in the [thousands] of wiretapped calls introduced in evidence by the government, there is not one suggesting she knew there was any kind of a conspiracy ... or any move to carry out violent acts,” Tigar said.

Attorney David Lerner had made closing remarks this week on behalf of Yousry, suggesting that he was only an Arabic translator and that he had not engaged in acts of terrorism. Attorney Ken Paul summed up the arguments for Sattar, saying he was a nonviolent activist who had simply acted as a well-intentioned “go-between” among people attempting to communicate with Rahman.

The case is expected to go to the jury next week.