My Heart Fails to BleedFor convicted terrorist abetter Lynne Stewart. Here's an
extraordinarily biased account of her conviction.
Because the Sheikh retains enormous support among his followers in Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya or "The Islamic Group", one of Egypt's most violent extremist organizations, strict rules limit his contact with the outside world. These rules, drawn up by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, are known as Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs and, as the Sheikh's attorney, Ms Stewart agreed to obey them.
But then, in May 2000, she broke them. Ms Stewart called a Reuters journalist in Egypt to release a letter from the Sheikh, which said he was withdrawing his personal support for a ceasefire that The Islamic Group had signed with the Egyptian Government in 1997. When asked why she did it, Ms Stewart has argued that keeping the Sheikh visible and politically active was part of a long-term plan to have him returned to Egypt to serve his sentence.No mention of her
speaking gibberish to distract the guards while the Sheikh gave orders to his interpreter.
And this part is unintentionally hilarious:
Ms Stewart has always believed in the jury system. In 1986 she managed to persuade a jury that a young black man who shot a white policeman did so in self-defence because of the systematic violence that his community had suffered.
But now, feeling that her own jury were unable to shake off the fears induced by "four years of unremitting orange alerts and a new Bin Laden tape unearthed, etcetera, etcetera," she says, "I am struggling with that underlying belief that is really the bedrock of my whole ability to practice."She used to believe in the jury because she was able to get a thug off for murdering a cop, but when she couldn't get off for helping the terrorists, her belief was shaken? And sorry, but as a convicted felon she's about to lose her law license, so she won't have to worry about the her "whole ability to practice".
