Posted on 10/16/2006 3:22:36 PM PDT by veronica
The anti-Bush billionaire supported lawyer who aided terrorists.
Billionaire financier George Soros, whose opposition to President Bush's conduct of the war on terror caused him to pour millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, made a substantial donation to the defense fund for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, who last week was found guilty of giving aid to Islamic terrorists.
According to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service, Soros's foundation, the Open Society Institute, or OSI, gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee.
In filings with the IRS, foundation officials wrote that the purpose of the contribution was "to conduct a public education campaign around the broad civil rights implications of Lynne Stewart's indictment."
Answering questions by e-mail, Amy Weil, a spokeswoman for the Open Society Institute, said the foundation contributed to Stewart's fund because "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support."
Stewart's legal troubles stemmed from her defense of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, sometimes known as the Blind Sheikh. Rahman led an Egyptian-based terrorist organization known as the Islamic Group.
In 1996, Rahman was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, and for his part in failed plots to blow up the United Nations building and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels in New York.
After his conviction, Rahman's followers threatened a series of terrorist attacks against American targets unless he were released. In 1998, the U.S. government reportedly had intelligence that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were plotting to hijack aircraft in the United States in order to demand freedom for Rahman and other convicted terrorists.
Because of those threats, the government issued a special order that the imprisoned Rahman not be allowed to communicate with his followers, to prevent his inciting them to further violence. He was allowed to communicate only with his wife and with his lawyers, who were not allowed to relay his wishes to his followers.
Stewart promised to abide by those rules. But at her trial, the government produced evidence showing that Stewart and two codefendants on a number of occasions used their privileged access to Rahman to help transmit Rahman's orders to his followers in the Islamic Group.
On February 10, Stewart was convicted on two counts of providing material aid to terrorists and three counts of lying to federal investigators. She is planning to appeal.
Before the verdict, officials of the Open Society Institute characterized Stewart's work as that of a "human rights defender." In an October 2004 speech in Norway, Gara LaMarche, head of OSI programs in the United States, said, "The right to counsel, and its erosion in the United States since September 11, strikes with particular force at the role of human rights defenders. One troubling trend has been the arrest and prosecution of lawyers and other defenders as 'material witnesses' to terrorism. These include Lynne Stewart, attorney for Sheik Abdel Rahman..."
At one point, Stewart's Defense Committee website, lynnestewart.org, bore the notation, "This website is made possible by the generous support of the Open Society Institute."
Amy Weil told National Review that while the Institute initially underwrote Stewart's defense, the foundation's commitment was not open-ended. "More recently, OSI was asked for additional funding and we turned down that request," she said.
Amy Weil in the ACLU National Press Office
Open Society Institute media officer Amy Weil
CONTACT: Amy Weil, ACLU
bump for publicity
This guy just pours his money down one rathole after another, doesn't he? I would think that by now, he would be ready to give up. But nooooooo, he hates Bush too much to do that.
Yikes I didn't realize how much Stewart and Moore looked like each other. It is almost a separated at birth moment.
What would be FASCINATING would be to hear Bubba's take on all this. After all, he's the one who put the blind sheik away. Is he going to come to the defense of his fellow anti-American leftist buddy Stewart, or condemn this travesty, because after all he "tried" to stop terrrorists. Remember, he "tried". In contrast to all of the neocons who claimed he was too obssessed with bin Laden. At least he "tried".
Major funder of Democrats, Soros, funded defense of a traitor!
WOW!
"Billionaire financier George Soros, whose opposition to President Bush's conduct of the war on terror caused him to pour millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, made a substantial donation to the defense fund for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, who last week was found guilty of giving aid to Islamic terrorists."
Ideological secular Jews often derive their ideological bearings from heritage of Zionist and Socialist Jews of early 20th century late 19th century... in fact, an early example was, um, Karl Marx!
Equally outrageous is the pin-head judge that only gave her a 28 month sentence! When one considers what could have been the result of this communication with very dangerous terrorists one is astonished at this judicial lunacy.
No wonder so many have contempt instead of respect for our legal system.
I don't know about that. Bill Kristol, Podhoretz, Nobel winner Milton Friedman, Senator Norm Coleman, are all "secular" Jews, and pretty darn conservative to boot.
by the way, the liberal Judge was nominated by by Moynahan and Clinton, neither of them are Jewish.
What a surprise, the #1 funder of Hate America bankrolled this treasonous B$tch's defense!
That's a keeper!
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