NEW YORK - A defense attorney with a reputation as a zealous advocate has become a defendant herself, accused of crossing the line by conspiring to help an imprisoned client relay messages to his radical Islamic followers. <br>
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U.S. Attorney James B. Comey accused attorney Lynne Stewart and three men of aiding terrorism by assisting blind cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leader of a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida. <br>
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Abdel-Rahman, 63, is serving a life term in federal prison for his role in a 1993 conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks. He was considered the spiritual leader of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.<br>
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Stewart pleaded ``emphatically not guilty'' Tuesday in a courtroom packed with fellow defense attorneys who labeled the case a political prosecution designed to discourage the vigorous defense of terrorist defendants. <br>
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``I'm going to continue to be a lawyer, hopefully, until they carry me out,'' Stewart said after being released on $500,000 bond. ``I'm sincerely hoping it won't be the U.S. government doing the carrying.'' <br>
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The indictment accuses Stewart of carrying messages from the sheik from 1999 through mid-2001 when he was in prison in Rochester, Minn., despite rules prohibiting him from communicating with his followers. <br>
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Attorney General John Ashcroft singled out Stewart, saying she ``repeatedly and willfully'' violated a court-order prohibiting the sheik from communicating with his followers.<br>
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Stewart, 62, has a reputation for defending unpopular clients, from Weather Underground radicals to cop killers and recently, mob killer and turncoat Salvatore ``Sammy the Bull'' Gravano. <br>
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Stewart said she hoped the indictment becomes a ``touchstone case ... something that points out the limits the government can go through in prosecuting people they don't like.'' <br>
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Named as co-conspirators were Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 42, a U.S. Postal Service employee described as a ``surrogate'' for Abdel-Rahman; Yassir Al-Sirri, former head of the London-based Islamic Observation Center; and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator. <br>
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Sattar and Yousry pleaded innocent. Al-Sirri was arrested in Britain last fall and was charged with conspiring in the assassination of a Northern Alliance commander in Afghanistan. Federal prosecutors said they will seek his extradition to the United States. <br>
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All four defendants were charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to the terrorist organization called the Islamic Group. Each count carries a prison term of five to 20 years. <br>
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The indictment accused Sattar and Al-Sirri of relaying an October 2000 edict from Abdel-Rahman urging Muslims everywhere ``to fight the Jews and to kill them wherever they are.'' <br>
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It also alleged Stewart concealed a prison conversation between Yousry and Abdel-Rahman from prison guards, in part by making extraneous comments in English to mask the Arabic conversation between the two men. <br>
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Ashcroft said the government will now monitor conversations between the sheik and his lawyers - the first use of an anti-terrorism tactic permitted under the Patriot Act, a law passed after Sept. 11. <br>
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Defense attorney Michael Warren - one of dozens of attorneys who attended Stewart's arraignment in a show of support - called her arrest ``the beginning of an attempt to create a dangerous precedent flowing out of the Patriot Act.'' <br>
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Another Stewart supporter, Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said attorney-client privilege was threatened by the indictment. <br>
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``There's clearly an attempt to infringe upon communications between attorneys and clients,'' he said. ``It's a full-scale attack on the Bill of Rights.'' <br>
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Lawyer Ron Kuby, who represented the sheik before Stewart took over, called the charges ``an attempt to intimidate the attorneys who are willing to stand up and challenge what John Ashcroft is doing to the Constitution.''
