Terrorist defense lawyer admits she approves of violence to "overthrow capitalism"
Radical lawyer Lynne Stewart yesterday admitted that she believes violence is necessary to thwart governments steeped in "entrenched capitalism."
Stewart is on trial for allegedly helping smuggle incendiary messages from blind cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman — who is imprisoned for life for plotting to blow up city landmarks — to terrorist followers overseas.
[Why the Post doesn't mention the fact that Abdel-Rahman was convicted primarily for being one of the masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing, I don't know.
Maybe NYers just know that too well by now...--Jen]
Prosecutors charge that the acts violated prison rules and aided and abetted terrorist activity.
"I believe entrenched capitalism needs to be changed, and that's not easy," Stewart told Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember on her seventh day on the stand in Manhattan federal court.
Asked if violence was necessary to achieve such change, Stewart replied, "I don't think they [the targeted governments] will give up without that kind of threat.
"I'm taking about a popular revolution," she said.
[Actually, she's talking about a Marxist revolution by the "proletariat," taken straight out of the writings of Lenin and Das Kapital.--J.T.
Stewart said she backed a revolution in Egypt where hard-line Islamic fundamentalists would overthrow Egypt's secular government — the same view espoused by Abdel-Rahman.
In earlier testimony, Stewart insisted she was a legal advocate of the sheik but did not necessarily support his violent stands.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember grilled Stewart on a June 2000 statement she issued to Reuters announcing Abdel-Rahman had canceled his support for a "cease-fire" that the "Islamic Group" had with the Egyptian government.
Abdel-Rahman was considered the spiritual leader of the Egyptian-based Islamic Group, whose members wanted to overthrow the Cairo government.
[If I haven't mistaken the group, these are the same IslamoNazis who assassinated Sadat in 1981 and carried out several attacks on European tourists in Egypt during the '90's, among other terror activities.]
Stewart's statement on Abdel-Rahman's behalf ignited a firestorm in Egypt and other parts of the Mideast.
[Great! Just what we need...another Islamist jihad.
And Egypt's trying to deal with the ramifications of what's happening in next-door Israel with the death of Arafat and Israel's planned disengagement from Gaza.]
[...]
Under cross-examination from Dember, Stewart admitted she knew Rahman advocated violence, preached hatred of America and wanted to destroy Israel.
Good thing we got him in prison where he should be watched constantly.
Who knows why Stewart decided to come clean (the government must have the goods on her!), but being a lawyer herself, she realizes the consequences of what she's admitting to in court.
I hope the judge throws the book at her, too and puts her in the cell with Rahman and then has the key thrown away.
How an American and a woman who's obviously so smart can go so wrong is beyond me, but she's revealed herself to be an enemy of this country in wartime who aids and abets the violent overthrow of our government, Egypt's and probably any other country's that isn't sufficiently "Islamic" or is too "entrenchedly capitalist" and for that, she must be stopped in her efforts.
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