Write letters in support of Muhammed Yousry, Lynne Stewart's Arabic translator

Please be advised that you are not powerless in the travesty that is the
case of Muhammad Yousry. You can help Muhammad by writing letters to the
judge in the case. Sentencing, as many of you know, is scheduled for
September.

The letters should touch on anything you deem to be important or
relevant. For example, should you chose you might highlight that the
conviction would have never been possible if not for the currently
highly charged political climate. Please keep in mind that the letters
will be read by a judge who has the power to sentence Muhammad to jail
for decades. Therefore, try to be straight forward, sincere and respectful.

These letters should be mailed as soon as possible and certainly by the
end of August. The letters should be addressed to the judge but mailed
to Muhammad Yousry's lawyer David Stern.

Please, address the letters to:
Honorable Judge John G. Koeltel
United States District Court Judge
Southern District of New York
500 Pearl Street
New York, NY 10007
RE: Mohamed Yousry
United States V. Sattar et al- Docet # S102 Cr 395

Mail the letters to:

David Stern
Attorney At Law
100 Lafayette Street Suite 501
New York, NY 10013


Thanks so much.
We appreciate anything you can do.

Michael Gasper

Please note the following article on the case as well:

New York Times
August 13, 2005
New Trial Sought for Lawyer in Terror Case
By JULIA PRESTON

Lawyers for Lynne F. Stewart, the New York lawyer who was convicted in
February of aiding terrorism, have asked the judge to declare a mistrial
because one juror failed to disclose during pretrial jury selection that
he was biased against criminal defendants, according to federal court
documents unsealed yesterday.

The documents also show that a different juror approached Ms. Stewart's
lawyers after the verdict to say she had been intimidated by other
jurors during their deliberations and was not clear-headed when she
voted to convict Ms. Stewart and two co-defendants.

Ms. Stewart's lawyers have asked the judge, John G. Koeltl, to conduct
an inquiry about that juror's misgivings.

Because of the risks of a terrorism trial, the jurors in Ms. Stewart's
case were anonymous, identified only by numbers assigned during jury
selection and by the seats they occupied in the courtroom.

After the verdict, Judge Koeltl urged the jurors not to speak to the
news media about the trial, and their identities have not become public.

After deliberations that extended over a month, Ms. Stewart was
convicted on Feb. 10 in Federal District Court in Manhattan of aiding a
convicted terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Muslim
cleric who is serving a life sentence for conspiring to bomb New York
City landmarks.

Also convicted were Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a Staten Island postal worker,
and Mohamed Yousry, Ms. Stewart's Arabic translator. They are scheduled
to be sentenced Sept. 30.

According to a June 3 motion by Ms. Stewart's lawyers, Joshua L. Dratel
and Jill R. Shellow-Lavine, they were contacted after the verdict by a
prospective juror who had been eliminated from the pool before the
trial. She said she had chatted with another candidate, number 82, while
the judge was questioning prospective jurors on May 20, 2004.

Juror 82 "told us he had been in jail for a couple of nights when he was
in the military and that he did not want to go back there," the
prospective juror reported. "He then said, in substance, that if someone
is in front of a judge on charges, it is because they had done something
wrong."

Ms. Stewart's lawyers asked for a new trial on the ground that she did
not have an impartial jury since Juror 82 - who sat in the 12th seat in
court - failed to tell the court of his suspicions about trial
defendants and did not mention his incarceration.

During his pretrial questioning, Juror 82 testified that he served in
the Army from 1969 to 1971 and assured Judge Koeltl that nothing in his
military service would affect his ability to be fair, according to the
transcript.

In their papers, the prosecutors said the claims against Juror 82 were
very thin and did not come close to the "incontrovertible" evidence
required for mistrial.

Judge Koeltl's order unsealing the defense mistrial motions and the
government's responses became public yesterday. He has not ruled on the
motions.

The newly released documents also show that Juror 39 wrote a letter to
Judge Koeltl on March 25 outlining her complaints, and expanded on them
in an April 26 meeting with her lawyer, Steven Masef, and Ms. Stewart's
lawyers.

In an account of that meeting, Ms. Shellow-Lavine wrote that Juror 39
acknowledged that she was one of two holdouts for acquittal. Juror 39
said that during the deliberations another juror had told her that "it
would be her fault if anyone died in a terrorist attack" if she did not
vote with the others to convict the defendants. Frightened and
intimidated, Juror 39 believed "maybe she wasn't thinking clearly" when
she finally voted to convict.

She said she was further frightened on the last day of deliberations
when, as she was climbing out of the van that ferried the jurors to
court, someone who was not directly involved in the trial pointed her
out as "the holdout," Ms. Shellow-Lavine wrote. "She was very bitter
about her experience as a juror in this case and deeply offended by the
way she was treated by her fellow jurors," the lawyer wrote.

Juror 39, a thin woman with sculptured cheekbones, said during pretrial
questioning that she suffered from a rare respiratory disease in
remission. She said she was active in New York Democratic clubs.

In their papers, the prosecutors pointed out that Ms. Stewart's lawyers
were barred by law from interviewing a juror and urged the judge to
disqualify them from the case and disallow Juror 39's statements. In
papers filed Thursday, Mr. Dratel and Ms. Shellow-Lavine acknowledged
their "regrettable error."