US lawyer guilty of terror charge

By Jeremy Cooke
BBC News, New York

Stewart is free on bail while she awaits her sentence

A US civil rights lawyer has been convicted of supporting terrorists by smuggling messages from one of her convicted clients to followers.

Lynne Stewart, 65, had been representing radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, who was serving a life sentence on terror charges.

He was convicted in 1996 for planning attacks in New York.

Prosecutors accused Stewart of crossing the line between advocacy and involvement in terrorist activities.

Prison sentence awaited

She is a veteran civil rights lawyer with a reputation for bringing her firebrand left-wing politics to the courtroom.

In her 30 years on the New York legal scene, Stewart has represented a series of radicals and revolutionaries.

But it was her relationship with a blind Arab cleric which put her in the dock.

The court heard that she had abused lawyer-client privilege by taking messages from Abdel Rahman's prison cell to his radical followers in the outside world.

Prosecutor Andrew Dember said Stewart had effectively broken her client out of prison by re-establishing his contacts with active terrorists.

She faces up to 15 years in jail.