NEW YORK — The federal government carried out a "cruel and reckless" campaign to destroy an outspoken civil rights lawyer by whipping up fears of terrorism and falsely accusing her of conspiracy, her attorney charged Wednesday.
Michael Tigar, an attorney representing activist lawyer Lynne F. Stewart, began his closing remarks by ridiculing the government's case against his client -- which includes charges that she smuggled secret messages from terrorists to an imprisoned Egyptian cleric, and then communicated his calls for violence to colleagues around the world.
"The government has a duty not to hype the evidence, but they've done just that," said Tigar, beginning his closing arguments.
"This is a dangerous world, and that's all the more reason not to throw words and labels around like terror or terrorism and exaggerate things.... We're going to show that this whole case is a house of cards."
Stewart, 65, is accused of conspiring with two other colleagues to help her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, send messages to followers in the Middle East. She is also charged with providing and concealing material support to terrorists abroad and with making false statements to the government.
Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who served as Abdel Rahman's paralegal, is charged with conspiring to murder and kidnap people in a foreign country, and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, is accused of conspiracy and perjury. If convicted, Stewart and Yousry could face a maximum of 20 years in prison; Sattar could face life in prison.
Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric, was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks. He is serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Rochester, Minn. Although Abdel Rahman remains in isolation, he is highly influential among members of the Islamic Group, a militant organization based in Egypt.
All three defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is the first time the Bush administration has attempted to prosecute a high-profile attorney in conjunction with a terrorism case. Several civil liberties activists have said the prosecution represents a dangerous infringement on the right of attorneys to represent clients, no matter how unpopular the clients may be.
The courtroom in Lower Manhattan was packed for the closing arguments by Tigar, an American University law professor and lawyer who is best known for his defense of Terry L. Nichols, the co-defendant with Timothy J. McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case.
