[SuperScout]

A New York attorney convicted of aiding terrorism by helping a client smuggle messages to militant followers was sentenced on Monday to 28 months in prison. Lynne Stewart, 67, was convicted in February 2005 of helping her imprisoned client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to contact the Islamic Group, which is listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors said messages Stewart passed on for Abdel-Rahman could have ignited violence in Egypt. The sheikh was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack U.S. targets in a plot prosecutors said included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Stewart, long a defender of the poor and unpopular, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan federal court. Her supporters rallied outside the courthouse chanting and carrying banners.

The civil rights lawyer has defended her actions, saying she was only zealously representing her client.

Interestingly enough, Stewart is being supported by the National Lawyers Guild, a communist front organization. She has represented anarchists and other terrorists, and apparently has the full support of the American left. The judge wimped out, and should have sentenced her to the full 30 years. Let her rot in prison.

Tagged as both heroine and radical leftist, Stewart is the only U.S. lawyer to be indicted on terrorism charges. Some observers said the case stemmed from Bush administration efforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.

Since her 2002 indictment, Stewart has spoken at rallies, endured a seven-month trial, been convicted, undergone treatment for cancer and become the subject of a documentary called "Who's Afraid of Lynne Stewart?"