War On Terror: At the administration's request, a New York federal judge granted a "compassionate release" from prison for the radical lawyer convicted of helping a terrorist communicate with his followers in Egypt.
Lynne Stewart's release last week by U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl came after a request from the director of the Bureau of Prisons through the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, no doubt with the consent of higher-ups at the Department of Justice.
The 74-year-old Stewart was not scheduled for release until August 2018, but prosecutors say she suffers from recurrent stage-four breast cancer and has been given 18 months to live. This is longer than the victims of her client — Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik" who was the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 that left six people dead and more than a thousand injured — ever got.
She was found guilty in 2005 of charges she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between Rahman and his fellow terrorists. After one of those communications from the leader of the terrorist group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, some 60 people, including tourists, were massacred in Luxor, Egypt, in 1997.
In addition to masterminding the 1993 attack, Rahman also had planned to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge in New York City, as well as assassinate Egypt's president.
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