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Convicted of Aiding Terrorist, Translator Prepares for Prison Cell, Still in Disbelief
new york times ^ | Lynne F. Stewart

Posted on 08/07/2005 2:38:42 AM PDT by Antioch

Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic-language translator, has been practicing for life in a prison cell. He closes himself into small spaces to meditate and combs through his library for nonpolitical books he supposes his keepers will allow him to read. But he still cannot quite believe that prison is where he is going.

After working for nearly a decade as a translator for Lynne F. Stewart, a New York defense lawyer, Mr. Yousry, 49, was convicted along with her on Feb. 10 in Manhattan federal court of providing material aid to terrorism and conspiring to deceive the government. Now free on bail and awaiting sentencing, which is set for Sept. 30, he faces as much as 20 years behind bars.

Although months have passed since the verdict, Mr. Yousry remains shocked and baffled by it. Throughout the grueling nine-month trial, Mr. Yousry and his lawyers were convinced that he had a strong chance of acquittal.

The charges hinged on Ms. Stewart's provocative legal strategy on behalf of a convicted terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which she defied a prison rule that restricted communications by releasing messages from him to the international press and to his militant followers in Egypt.

Mr. Yousry's lawyers, David Ruhnke and David Stern, showed in court that he took no actions on his own to help the sheik politically and did his translation work based on instructions he received from Ms. Stewart and other lawyers for Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Muslim cleric who is serving a life sentence in federal prison for conspiring to bomb landmarks in New York City.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: abdelrahman; jihadinamerica; lynnefstewart; lynnestewart; terrorists; terrortrials; yousry
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"I still don't know what it is that I did that was even wrong, much less illegal," said Mr. Yousry, alternately indignant and mournful...

Well, Mr. Yousry, to put it in simple terms, killing people that won't bow to a meteorite is illegal.

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1 posted on 08/07/2005 2:38:42 AM PDT by Antioch
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To: Antioch

Hey Mohamed...have a nice life you puke.


2 posted on 08/07/2005 2:40:54 AM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: ncountylee
Is there any possibility that Mohamed could speed his declining years in a cell with Lynne Stewart. He would commit suicide within days. Stewart should get life at a minimum
3 posted on 08/07/2005 2:51:45 AM PDT by Recon Dad (Stewart's mommy was a commie)
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To: Recon Dad
The Smoking Gun has a good synopsis on the methods of this team of traitors.

FBI affidavit details Abdel-Rahman's jailhouse pipeline

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman laughed at the ease with which his legal team improperly smuggled messages that allowed the Muslim extremist to continue directing terrorist operations while serving a life sentence in a Minnesota prison cell.

Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were transporting messages to his disciples. "I really would like that they arrest those doves. I wish that one day I read, 'The FBI was able to arrest the doves that are contacting the Sheikh.'" The convicted terrorist then added, "as long as the government is using secret evidence we will use secret doves." The FBI document provides the first detailed account of the system by which the blind Egyptian cleric secretly exchanged messages with fellow members of the Islamic Group (IG), a Mideast terror organization in league with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. In April, lawyer Lynne Stewart, interpreter Mohammed Yousry, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, whom federal prosecutors describe as IG's one-man "communications center," were charged with conspiring to provide material support for a terrorist organization for their alleged role in facilitating Abdel-Rahman communiques. All three have pleaded not guilty. While Stewart and Yousry have been released on bond--$500,000 and $750,000 respectively--Sattar is being held without bail. Citing a judicial protective order covering the FBI affidavit, Susan Tipograph, Stewart's attorney, declined today to answer TSG questions regarding the sealed document.

The affidavit, prepared by agent Kimberley Whittle, a Joint Terrorist Task Force member, appears to provide particularly damning evidence against Stewart, the 62-year-old radical attorney who represented Abdel-Rahman at his 1995 federal trial. The document also includes an intriguing July 2001 exchange about the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which Abdel-Rahman was told was done to secure his release from prison.

According to Whittle, during one prison visit with Abdel-Rahman--as the convicted terrorist leader improperly dictated messages to Yousry in Arabic--Stewart "made random comments out loud for the guards to hear in order to conceal the real conversation" between the sheikh and the interpreter. As Abdel-Rahman and Yousry conversed, Stewart interjected stray statements like, "Yes, the uhm...I am talking to you about...him going out on a, uh, chocolate eh...heart attack here," according to the FBI affidavit. The document also alleges that, while prison guards patrolled nearby, Stewart was observed "pretending to take notes on her legal pad."

Stewart, Abdel-Rahman, and Yousry "shared laughs" about the "fine acting job that she was doing in successfully tricking the guards," according to the affidavit. Remarking on that performance, a hidden government listening device recorded Stewart saying, "I can get an award for it." Translating Stewart's flip comment, Yousry told Abdel-Rahman, according to Whittle's affidavit, "She is saying, Your Eminence, that she can get an award for acting (all three laugh). Alright, fine now, they [the guards] are stepping back."

4 posted on 08/07/2005 3:00:45 AM PDT by Antioch (Flannery O'Connor: “evil is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be endured”)
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To: Recon Dad
Stewart should get life at a minimum

Stewart should hang. Death to traitors!
5 posted on 08/07/2005 3:00:57 AM PDT by GodBlessRonaldReagan (Count Petofi will not be denied!)
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To: Antioch

Maybe he could strap on a bomb and blow himself up, like his friends who have more guts (at least until they splatter them all over).


6 posted on 08/07/2005 3:02:52 AM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: Antioch

Terrorists , both of them... Lock 'em up and throw away the key......


7 posted on 08/07/2005 3:26:43 AM PDT by Deetes (God Bless the Troops and their Family's)
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To: Deetes

She is a F@cking Lawyer. She knew exactly what she was getting into. Rot B!tch! Well, looks like you already have.

Rot More!


8 posted on 08/07/2005 3:59:44 AM PDT by BookaT (My cat's breath smells like cat food!)
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To: Antioch
It was only because of a judges decision, that Ron Kuby should not be assigned the client given to Ms Steward.

Good thing for him and Curtis, I guess.

9 posted on 08/07/2005 4:08:17 AM PDT by mware (Now we know why the NYT didn't have time to cover AIR AMERIKA)
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To: Antioch
"The fact that I now know that these lawyers were following a strategy that the government didn't like, that makes me a criminal?" he asked.

No the fact that your work knowingly enabled your criminal lawyers to circumvent a signed court order and pass messages from a known terrorist puppet-master to his puppets who killed people makes you a criminal, dipstick! If you want to blame the system, blame them for not giving the blind shiek the hanging he so richly deserved.

10 posted on 08/07/2005 4:16:04 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (crime would drop like a sprung trapdoor if we brought back good old-fashioned hangings)
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To: Antioch

We have sitting senators and congresspeople, who seem to be "secret" doves as well, appears they are a protected class under political speech.


11 posted on 08/07/2005 4:20:51 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: Antioch
Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were transporting messages to his disciples.

Trained doves=useful idiots.

12 posted on 08/07/2005 4:29:04 AM PDT by Huntress (Possession really is nine tenths of the law.)
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To: Antioch

Ha, ha, ha, ha ,ha ,ha , ha , ha!
You got what you deserve, you piece of $hit!


13 posted on 08/07/2005 4:39:34 AM PDT by Riptides
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To: Antioch

By JULIA PRESTON

not Stewart.


14 posted on 08/07/2005 4:44:30 AM PDT by leadpenny
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To: Antioch

Lynn F. Stewart did not write this article.

It's written by Julia Preston.


15 posted on 08/07/2005 4:51:15 AM PDT by aculeus (Ceci n'est pas une tag line.)
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To: Antioch
Mr. Yousry's lawyers, David Ruhnke and David Stern, showed in court that he took no actions on his own to help the sheik politically and did his translation work based on instructions he received from Ms. Stewart and other lawyers for Mr. Abdel Rahman,

Hey, dumb ass, if I instructed you to do anything illegal, you would have the obligation to turn me in.

I don't think you are as clueless as you claim.

Rot in jail scumbag

16 posted on 08/07/2005 4:52:42 AM PDT by Popman (In politics, ideas are more important than individuals.)
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To: Antioch

9/11 families should sue Stewart.


17 posted on 08/07/2005 4:55:33 AM PDT by hershey
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To: Antioch

Lynne F Stewart should be jailed beside him for her work aiding Terrorist (and John F Kerry).


18 posted on 08/07/2005 5:31:19 AM PDT by msnimje
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To: Antioch

His head and that of his keeper would be decorating a pike in Times Square a few generations ago.


19 posted on 08/07/2005 5:34:52 AM PDT by ZULU (Fear the government which fears your guns. God, guts, and guns made America great.)
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To: Antioch
Ms. Stewart's provocative legal strategy

An interesting euphemism for aiding and abetting murder.

20 posted on 08/07/2005 5:39:45 AM PDT by Stentor
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