Brian Hecht has a good look at the trial of accused terrorist abetter Lynne Stewart: A Terrorist Lawyer on Trial.

On Wednesday, January, 12, the jury for radical defense attorney Lynne Stewart began deliberating her fate. Stewart stands accused of willfully and knowingly conspiring to conceal the terrorist activities of her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the infamous Egyptian “blind cleric” and leader of the Al-Gama’a Islamiyya terrorist group.

Stewart’s own attorney, criminal defense lawyer Michael Tigar, famous for his defense of Oklahoma City Bombing terrorist Terry Nichols, made a rather startling assertion near the end of his closing argument: that the acquittal of his client would be akin to fighting terrorism. During his summation, Tigar told the jury about his fears regarding the case, saying, “I concede to you that I am afraid. I’m afraid that the Islamic fundamentalists or some other kinds of fundamentalists are going to win. Suppose we got so worked up, so incited by the rhetoric of government that we decided to punish people for their radical politics.” He continued, “If all of that happened, members of the jury, the fundamentalists would have won.” Tigar added that if the jury convicted his client, then “the Islamic fundamentalists can have a big celebration.”

So Tigar, employing amazingly convoluted logic, is attempting to sell the notion that if Islamic terrorists lose Stewart—one of their best friends in the West in both their propaganda and tactical wars against us—to prison, they will not be disappointed, but, rather, will proceed to throw the mother of all parties. At the same time, he tells the jury that, should they acquit Stewart and set free one of the terrorists’ most helpful and vocal advocates, then those same terrorists will be dismayed, simply because her acquittal will somehow be proof that “freedom reigns.” Lawyers, however, just like everyone else, are not free to violate the law. And despite Tigar’s assertion to the contrary, failing to cloak defense attorneys with immunity for misconduct hardly helps Islamic fundamentalists in their war on the West.

And speaking of that war, it should be remembered that Rahman, the terror master whom Stewart allegedly collaborated with and the “spiritual leader” of the group that perpetrated the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center, is currently serving a life prison term for his part in a 1995 plot to blow up landmarks and tunnels in NewYork City.