The decision was met with a sense of relief by Stewart and her supporters. The government had sought a 30-year sentence. Some 200 backers of her defense campaign clapped and cheered outside the courthouse when the judge’s ruling was announced.

“We can claim a victory, by going home and being able to continue the fight to appeal the sentence,” Stewart told supporters after the hearing. “I am staying out until after an appeal that I hope will vindicate me, that I hope will make me back into the lawyer that I was.”

Stewart, along with Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohammed Yousry, were convicted on charges of “aiding” a group the government had designated as “terrorist,” and of violating prison restrictions in helping their client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, to transmit messages to his followers in Egypt.

Sattar, a former postal worker, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. He had been convicted of allegedly negotiating by phone with a backer of Abdel-Rahman to end a cease-fire by the latter’s group in Egypt. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl said he imposed this sentence, and not the life term the prosecution had requested, “because no one was killed or injured as a result of the crimes,” AP reported.

Yousry, Stewart’s Arabic translator, was given 20 months. The prosecution had asked for 20 years.

Between 1994 and 2002, Stewart, 67, was a defense lawyer for Abdel-Rahman, a Muslim cleric who is blind and who was convicted on charges of conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 and attack other city landmarks. He was sentenced in 1996 to life in prison, plus 65 years. His trial was mired with violations of his rights as a defendant, and he faced brutal treatment in prison.

Washington had hailed the conviction of Stewart and her co-defendants as a major victory in its “war on terror.”

Then-Attorney General John Aschroft brought the indictment, claiming the three had violated the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. During the trial the prosecution was allowed to play as evidence videotapes of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden meeting with one of Abdel-Rahman’s sons.

“The government’s characterization of me and what occurred is inaccurate and untrue,” Stewart wrote in a letter to Koeltl September 26. “It takes unfair advantage of the climate of urgency and hysteria that followed 9/11 and that was re-lived during the trial.”

Stewart and her attorneys had asked the court to impose no prison time, pointing to her poor health.

Judge Koeltl said the charges she was convicted of could have “potentially lethal consequences,” and called them “extraordinarily severe criminal conduct.” He handed down the sentence pointing to Stewart’s “extraordinary personal characteristics,” including decades of work as a defense lawyer.

Some of the big-business media, especially the conservative press, vilified Stewart and ridiculed her sentence. “Joke’s on us. Laughing traitor gets a pass,” was the front-page headline of the October 17 New York Post. An editorial in the Investor's Business Daily the next day, headlined, “The Laughing Traitor,” said Stewart got a “slap on the wrist. ”

“The government is disappointed in the sentences imposed today,” said Michael Garcia, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, in a statement he released October 16 after the judge’s ruling. “We will be exploring our appellate options.”
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist candidate: Drop sentences! Reverse convictions!
Canadian gov’t apologizes for its role in deporting and torture of citizen  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home