U.S. Lawyer Accused of Aiding Imprisoned Cleric in Terror Plot

A defense lawyer and three others were indicted Tuesday for allegedly enabling a blind Egyptian cleric to run a violent Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization from his U.S. prison cell by helping him communicate with his followers around the world.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said that attorney Lynne F. Stewart conspired to help her longtime client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, maintain his influence over the Islamic Group even though he has been in virtual lock-down since 1995, when he was convicted of seditious conspiracy in plotting to destroy New York City landmarks.

Abdel Rahman has most recently been housed in a maximum-security medical prison in Minnesota. He is not allowed to communicate with his followers, the media or anyone except his lawyer because of authorities’ concerns that he may be conspiring in efforts to commit more acts of terrorism.

Stewart, 62, has represented a series of Islamic militants, accused cop killers and Mafioso-turned-informant Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano. Earlier this year, she announced that she would represent Abdel Rahman’s son Ahmed, who was captured in Afghanistan in November and accused of being a liaison between the Islamic Group and Al Qaeda.

Also indicted were Arabic interpreter Mohammed Yousry, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Yassir Al-Sirri, described in court papers as active members of Islamic Group, or Gama’a al-Islamiyya. The organization has claimed responsibility for the 1997 slaying of 58 tourists at an Egyptian archeological site and other bloody terrorist attacks.

According to the indictment, Abdel Rahman relied on communications with Stewart, translated by Yousry, to pass messages to and receive messages from Sattar, Al-Sirri and other Islamic Group members, including discussions of potential terrorist activities in Egypt.

Although Abdel Rahman, 63, was not charged on Tuesday--he is serving a term of life in prison without parole--Ashcroft accused the religious leader of adhering to the principles of Al Qaeda, an affiliated terrorist organization run by one of the sheik’s most vocal supporters, Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaeda’s official training manual, Ashcroft said, states that imprisoned Islamic jihadists, or holy warriors, should continue their terrorist operations by surreptitiously exchanging information with those on the outside and even getting coded directives out to them.

“As today’s indictment sets forth, Sheik Abdel Rahman has learned Al Qaeda’s lessons well,” Ashcroft said. “Sheik Rahman is determined to exploit the rights guaranteed him under the United States’ system of justice to pursue the destruction of that very system. The United States cannot, and will not, stand by and allow this to happen.”

Abdel Rahman could not have maintained his leadership role in the Islamic Group, Ashcroft said, without the “willful and repeated assistance” of Stewart and the three others indicted. He described Sattar and Al-Sirri as vital links between the blind sheik and his fervent followers worldwide.

FBI agents arrested Stewart, Yousry and Sattar on Tuesday, searched their homes and offices and seized computers and other records. Al-Sirri, the head of the London-based Islamic Observation Center, has been in custody there since his arrest on terrorism charges in October 2001.

Late Tuesday, Stewart was arraigned at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan that was attended by more than 40 supporters, many of them defense lawyers who said they were irate that their legal colleague had been arrested.

Stewart was asked by U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl how she would plead.

“Emphatically not guilty,” Stewart said. She was released on $500,000 bond. Yousry and Sattar also pleaded not guilty; Yousry made $750,000 bond but Sattar was denied bail.

Leaving the courthouse, Stewart said to reporters, “Are they going to arrest the lady who cleans the sheik’s cell? It goes too far.” The other defendants could not be reached for comment.

Stewart faces a maximum of 40 years in prison if convicted on all counts with the sentences served sequentially; the others could receive between 35 and 55 years. All were charged with conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization; other charges filed against various defendants included conspiracy to defraud, solicitation and making false statements.

On one occasion in May 2000, the indictment alleges, Stewart visited Abdel Rahman at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., and discussed with him whether the Islamic Group should continue to comply with a 2-year-old cease-fire agreement with Egyptian authorities.

Following that meeting, Stewart told the media that Abdel Rahman had withdrawn his support for the cease-fire, in effect communicating his wishes to his followers, according to the indictment.

On another occasion, Stewart and the others agreed to rile up Abdel Rahman’s followers by saying he was being denied much-needed insulin for his diabetes, when they knew he was receiving the medication but refusing to take it, the indictment said.

Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based human rights organization, said outside the hearing that he believed it was the first time a lawyer had been indicted in connection with a terrorism case, and certainly the first since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“People are shocked more than outraged; outrage will come later,” Goodman said. “This is a long, slow progressive buildup of the assault on the Bill of Rights. This is an attack on the bar.”

But Ashcroft said Stewart had turned the corner from aggressive legal advocate to willing and knowing participant in illegal acts by serving as an information conduit in direct defiance of a judge’s order.

At his news conference, Ashcroft did not elaborate on what, if any, alleged plots were believed to be in the works by Islamic Group, citing an ongoing criminal probe. But he said the group was clearly a threat.

“Islamic Group is a global terrorist organization that has forged alliances with other terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda,” Ashcroft said at a news conference near the wreckage of the World Trade Center. “It has an active membership in the United States, concentrated in the New York City metropolitan area.”

The group and the sheik are such a threat that authorities have been engaged in court-authorized monitoring of his conversations since 1998, Ashcroft said. The indictment grew out of these monitored conversations, and other evidence that officials did not disclose.

Concerns that the Egyptian spiritual leader may have been involved in terrorist plots was also a prime motivator for the Justice Department’s move to monitor the prison conversations of more than a dozen other imprisoned militants suspected of fomenting terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Ashcroft said.

Stewart was Abdel Rahman’s lawyer when he was convicted in 1995 for his role in a conspiracy to blow up several tunnels, the United Nations building, the George Washington Bridge and other New York landmarks. He was regarded as the spiritual leader of the group involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured more than 1,000 people.

Howard Srebnick, a Miami defense attorney who represented two lawyers indicted for helping their drug-dealer clients, said Stewart’s case raises interesting issues. He said the facts of the case ultimately will determine whether Stewart broke the law or was merely being an aggressive defender of her clients.

“It is always appropriate for a lawyer to zealously defend his client within the bounds of the law, regardless of whether the lawyer believes in the client’s innocence or guilt,” said Srebnick, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Miami on ethics and criminal law. “But it is never appropriate for a lawyer to commit criminal acts to further the client’s illegal conspiracy. A lawyer routinely communicates with his client and on behalf of his client, but cannot serve as a messenger for the client knowing that the message is a criminal act.”