Lawyer, three others charged with aiding imprisoned militant

Associated Press WriterNEW YORK (AP) -- An attorney and three other people were indicted Tuesday on charges they helped an Islamic militant imprisoned in the United States communicate with his followers in Egypt.

The indictment accuses the defendants of supporting the Egyptian-based terrorist organization known as the Islamic Group by passing messages "to and from the imprisoned Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman."

Among the four is Lynne Stewart, a lawyer for the sheik. The indictment charges that the unlawful communications with the sheik happened during prison visits and attorney telephone calls involving Stewart and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator who was also charged.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference announcing the indictments that the Islamic Group has "a message of hate that is now tragically familiar to Americans."

Ashcroft identified the others charged as Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a Staten Island man described as a "surrogate" for Abdel-Rahman; and Yassir Al-Sirri, the former head of the London-based Islamic Observation Center. Al-Sirri was charged with "facilitating communications among Islamic Group members and providing financing for their activities."

Stewart, Sattar and Yousry were all in federal custody. Al-Sirri was in custody in the United Kingdom.

Abdel-Rahman, 63, is serving a life sentence in the United States for conspiring to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and blow up five New York City landmarks in the 1990s.

Ashcroft said Rahman allegedly used communications with Stewart, translated by Yousry, to pass messages to and receive messages from Sattar, Al-Sirri and other Islamic Group members.

The attorney general announced that the Justice Department had, for the first time, invoked the authority to monitor communications between Abdel-Rahman and his attorneys.

"The sheik is a person whose leadership is substantial in the community of terrorists," he said. He added that the indictment didn't allege there were any conversations about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The indictment alleges the sheik in October 2000 issued an edict titled "Fatwah Mandating the Bloodshed of Israelis Everywhere," which called on "brother scholars everywhere in the Muslim world to do their part and issue an unanimous fatwah (edict) that urges the Muslim nation to fight the Jews and kill them wherever they are."

Stewart was arrested by federal agents Tuesday morning, according to her lawyer, Susan Tipograph. A woman answering the phone in Stewart's office said FBI agents with a search warrant arrived at about 11:30 a.m. The four-story building that houses Stewart's offices was locked and a New York police officer stood guard outside.

Abdel-Rahman was among 10 defendants convicted by a Manhattan jury in 1995 of seditious conspiracy in a failed plot to bomb the United Nations, FBI headquarters in Manhattan, two tunnels and a bridge connecting New Jersey and New York. The others convicted were all followers of Abdel-Rahman.

Prosecutors said the defendants wanted to use urban terrorism to pressure the United States into curbing support for Middle East nations that opposed the sheik's extremist brand of Islam.

Stewart argued during the trial that the blind sheik was being prosecuted for his speech.

------Associated Press Writers Pat Milton and Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.