Contributed by: filbert Monday, October 16 2006 @ 02:15 PM CST
Prosecutors said messages Stewart passed on forAbdel-Rahman could have ignited violence in Egypt. The sheikhwas convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack U.S. targets in aplot prosecutors said included the 1993 World Trade Centerbombing.
Stewart, long a defender of the poor and unpopular, wassentenced by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattanfederal court. Her supporters rallied outside the courthousechanting and carrying banners.
The civil rights lawyer has defended her actions, sayingshe was only zealously representing her client.
Tagged as both heroine and radical leftist, Stewart is theonly U.S. lawyer to be indicted on terrorism charges. Someobservers said the case stemmed from Bush administrationefforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.
The two years and four months she was sentenced to by a Federal Judge sort of argues against “efforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.” What she was convicted of was smuggling messages to and from Shiek Omar and his radical terrorists supporters. Nothing political about that, except exhibiting an extreme hatred and contempt of Western civilization.