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Vol. 77/No. 27      July 15, 2013

 
Prison officials deny Lynne Stewart
appeal for compassionate release
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Prison authorities have rejected a request for compassionate release for jailed attorney Lynne Stewart, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer that has spread to her lymph nodes and back. Stewart, 73, is a criminal defense lawyer who often took cases other attorneys shunned for political and career reasons and defended working people who could not afford typical lawyers’ fees.

“While setting up for our daily demonstration and vigil in front of the White House June 24, Lynne called and read me a letter she had received from Kathleen Kenney, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., denying her application for compassionate release,” Stewart’s husband Ralph Poynter told the Militant in a phone interview June 28.

“This three-paragraph letter is full of lies,” Poynter said. “It says Lynne is improving. She is not. She’s back in quarantine for the second time with a low white blood cell count, putting her at risk for generalized infection.”

In recent months, thousands have signed an online petition requesting compassionate release for Stewart.

“We thought we had passed the most difficult hurdles,” said Poynter. The prison warden at Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, had signed for her release, and so did Charles Samuels, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, “but the prison bureau delayed issuing a response.”

Every day she’s held in prison, puts Stewart further behind in obtaining needed medical treatment, Poynter said.

Stewart has been in jail since November 2009 on trumped-up charges for violating Special Administrative Measures that shut off communication with the outside world for prisoners designated as “terrorists.” The measures — set up after Sept. 11, 2001 — were imposed on her client Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Muslim cleric convicted in 1995 of “seditious conspiracy” for alleged links to a plot to bomb the United Nations and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

For facilitating a press release to Reuters from Abdel-Rahman commenting on a cease-fire between the Islamic Group and the U.S.-backed Mubarak dictatorship, Stewart was convicted of “providing material support to a terrorist organization” and other lesser charges. Two men of Egyptian origin, Ahmed Sattar and Mohammed Yousry, were convicted on similar charges for the press release.

Judge John Koeltl initially sentenced Stewart to 28 months in prison. On appeal, the judge increased her prison term to 10 years because of statements she made to supporters and the press outside the courtroom following her original sentencing — a vindictive move and blow against free speech.

“Our next step is a last ditch effort to go back to Judge Koeltl ” and ask him to overturn the prison authorities’ rejection of compassionate release, said Poynter.  
 
 
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