Free Republic

CAIRO - In his first public speech addressing tens of thousands of mostly Islamist supporters, Egypt's president-elect Mohammed Morsi has vowed to free the blind sheik jailed in the U.S. for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. Morsi, Egypt's first Islamist and civilian president-elect, promised Friday to work to free Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also promised to free detained Egyptian protesters facing military tribunals.

Each held Saturday on $1.5 million bondTwo Broward County men were among three arrested this week in a nighttime police raid after they planned to attack four police stations, President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house, according to court documents. The men arrested Wednesday in an apartment building in the Bridgeport neighborhood. They're accused of trying to make Molotov cocktails ahead of the two-day summit that starts Sunday. They were each held Saturday on $1.5 million bond. Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. and Jared Chase, 24, of...

Officers wearing Chicago Police uniforms raided an apartment in Bridgeport late Wednesday and detained at least eight activists without justification, lawyers working on behalf of NATO protesters alleged today. Police refused to provide any details about the alleged raid or whether they were detaining people. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was asked about the allegation after announcing at a news conference this afternoon that there had been “zero arrests, as far as protest activity today.” Asked about the Bridgeport incident, McCarthy said only that there was an “inquiry” authorities were looking into and he would have to gather further information before...

The National Lawyers Guild says it has obtained a court that allows Occupy Wall St. protesters to return with tents to a New York City park. The guild says the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city knew about the court order but has not seen it. He says the city plans to go court immediately.

Leonard Weinglass, an attorney who represented clients in high-profile political cases ranging from the Chicago Seven in the 1960s to the so-called Cuban Five in recent years, has died in New York City. He was 77. Colleague Michael Krinsky says Weinglass died Wednesday night of pancreatic cancer.

At Clinton Speech: Veteran Bloodied, Bruised & Arrested for Standing Silently As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday, condemning governments that arrest protestors and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail. She never paused speaking. When Secretary Clinton began her speech, Mr. McGovern remained standing silently in the audience and turned his back. Mr. McGovern, a veteran Army officer who also worked as a C.I.A. analyst for...

President Barack Obama has appointed a far left labor unionist to a security sensitive U.S. trade post. Bob King On February 16, 2011,  Obama  announced the appointment of United Auto Workers president Bob King to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. As U.S. trade positions and data are always  key targets of foreign intelligence services, one would think that appointments to such a body would be subject to thorough scrutiny. Either this was not done in King's case, or affiliation with far left organizations, is no longer considered any sort of danger to national security in today's Washington....

Meg Whitman’s Nightmare, Marc Van der Hout, a UN Narc Turns out Van der Hout’s the brains behind the Nicandra “Nicky” Diaz Santillan Dream Team. He he was part of yet another Dream Team pairing with David Cole as co-counsel of the “LA 8″ that resulted in the release of illegal Arab nationals. Van der Hout and Cole bought enough time in the courts for their defendants to become permanent residents of these United States.

The lawyer appointed to represent the man accused of attempting to bomb Northwest Flight 253 had prior success helping to defend an alleged terrorist. Miriam Siefer, the chief public defender in Detroit, also has handled cases involving disturbances on other Northwest flights, including one in which a man pleaded guilty after illegally transporting ammunition and saying he was traveling overseas to kill Osama bin Laden. Defense lawyers with experience in terrorism-related cases say Ms. Siefer's latest job -- representing 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged with trying to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit -- will be...

... [M]eet Umar Abdulmutallab’s lawyer, Miriam Siefer, whose salary you are paying. [...] During the Detroit terror cell case, she represented Karim Koubriti, an Islamic terrorist in a cell, which plotted to blow up the U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey, where U.S. AWACS and Israeli F-16s are based and from where they took off. They also plotted to blow up hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and planned to detonate in Disneyland. During the course of her “representation” of terrorist Koubriti, Siefer and her fellow public defender, Richard Helfrick a/k/a Rick Helfrick (who will probably also assist her in...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday the terrorists behind the attacks on the United States likely received support from foreign governments and that it was too early to tell if surprise arrests in Michigan were a major break in the case.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday took a sterner stance toward the upcoming resentencing of a former civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case, saying it has "serious doubts" whether her sentence of just over two years in prison was reasonable. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals added new instructions for the judge who will resentence 70-year-old Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of letting an imprisoned Egyptian terrorist client communicate with followers. The court said the judge should consider whether Stewart's sentence should be increased because of the case's terrorism connections. "We have serious...

A federal appeals court has ordered a civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case that originated in Minnesota to begin serving her prison sentence. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan today also upheld Lynne Stewart's conviction, which was based in part on illegally aiding her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, during a visit with him at the federal prison in Rochester, Minn., in May 2000. She was convicted of smuggling messages between Abdel-Rahman and a terrorist group. Stewart was sentenced to a little more than two years in prison.

Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees by Eric Holder is expected

A marathon deportation case against two Palestinian immigrants, pursued by the administrations of four U.S. Presidents over 20 years, has been dismissed. The ruling closes a Byzantine legal saga that wound its way through federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and federal immigration boards, breaking new legal ground along the way. It ended at the Department of Homeland Security, where the dismissal order was entered Tuesday. One of the defendants, Khader Musa Hamide, said in an interview that he will never get over the experience of being under suspicion for 20 years but now "I can breathe better." A...

Unrepentant, and convinced that Muslims across the world are the victims of American oppression, the mind of Richard Reid, the attempted shoe bomber from South London, was shown today in a letter published in a Scottish legal magazine. The letter, written by Reid from his prison cell in America on October 24, 2002, and published by The Firm magazine today, was sent to the magazine's US correspondent instead of an interview. In the letter, Reid, now 31, gave a rambling but cogent reply to a note sent to him by Noel Young, The Firm's journalist, who offered Reid the chance...

Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

A Palestinian activist and former college professor who has been in federal custody in Chicago since September has been indicted on a single criminal contempt charge for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the terrorist group Hamas. Federal prosecutors in Chicago announced the indictment Friday against Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, the same day U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and Chicago FBI Agent-in-Charge Tom Kneir paid a visit to the heavily Palestinian Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview. Ashqar, 45, a Palestinian native and former adjunct business professor at Howard University, had been granted immunity from prosecution for his testimony by U.S....

Ejected at ’04 Convention, a Protester Gets $55,000 By COLIN MOYNIHAN Published: November 15, 2008 During President Bush’s acceptance speech in Madison Square Garden at the 2004 Republican National Convention, a San Francisco woman briefly interrupted the proceedings by standing on a chair and unfurling a banner that accused the president of lying. That protest set into motion a chain of events that has ended in one of the more unusual legal resolutions connected to the four days of the convention, during which more than 1,800 demonstrators and bystanders were arrested, most of them in street protests. Hundreds of them...

Prostitution Raid links Communist Tax Lawyer, leftist voter project, and 9/11 Truther Movement You just can't make this stuff up. Louis Posner, a National Lawyers Guild affiliated Tax Attorney, is arrested for running a Strip Club, which was a front for prostitution. What makes this case unique is that the funds were laundered through Voter March, a leftist election reform organization. ABOUT VOTER MARCHBackground: Voter March began on November 14, 2000, as four founding members organizing people who wanted to express their opposition to the irregularities and egregious conduct of Election 2000 and the direction in which an illegitimate administration...