I received a call from Lynne Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, that the warden at FMC Carswell prison in Fort Worth Texas has recommended immediate compassionate release for government frame-up victim and renown attorney for the damned, Lynne Stewart.
Stewart was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism because she issued a press release on behalf of her client the “blind” sheik, Omar Abdel Rachman.
The Carswell warden stated that he could not deal with the over 11,000 petitions he had received to date and recommended to the Justice Department that Lynne be released to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, the world class hospital where Lynne first underwent surgery for breast cancer some three years ago.
Today that cancer has metastasized to both lungs and her back. She has been diagnosed by Forth Worth hospital doctors as having Stage 4 lung caner and is receiving chemotherapy in a nearby, but inadequate Forth Worth hospital. Lynne’s white blood count fell to almost zero, forcing doctors to send her to an isolation unit to prevent Lynne’s succombing to bacterial infestations that her body’s immune system is incapable of defending against.
Lynne case will now pass through a series of hurdles – from the Justice Department and the original sentencing Judge John Koeltl to perhaps President Obama himself.
The international campaign to win compassionate release must now shift to the national government, including the Obama administration. But the first victory has been achieved due to the mass of protest letters to the warden and innumerable acts of solidarity from well know figures across the globe.
The petition for Lynne can be found at LynneStewart.org
Sign now and distribute it widely!
Statement from Lynne Steward & Ralph Poynter re: Her Compassionate Release
April 28, 2013 Carswell Federal Medical Center
A worldwide Embrace to all of the thousands of People who helped Me ! As my hero said, we are motivated by great feelings of love and compassion and I am fortunate to be the beneficiary, this time around. To savor this victory, you all should know that the Carswell Prison
authorities kept telling me ” It can’t be done”. You don’t qualify. Why bother? Wait till you are closer to death! To all of them I replied that I
have been fighting battles like this all my life and I would never quit. Then I had this white blood cell setback, making me super-vulnerable and was quarantined for a week. I was released on Friday to learn that indeed “the children had shouted” and the walls ” Did come a-tumblin’ down ” I must say that I was in a state of bliss. Not Just to Win but to accomplish it in the time honored method , … we will organize the People and you dare not ignore us !!
Iowe an enormous debt to so many. This is the one we had to win where the medical decision was made that compassionate release was warranted. That cannot be trifled with BUT… we who have been out here struggling from the fifties onward know that the Government is masterful at Co-optation at snatching victory and making it defeat. Please do not think that my struggle is WON. We have this fabulous win but we still have the DC National Bureau of Prisons (if there ever was a time to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, this is it) and then their forwarding of the case to the Judge in New York for a final decision (Yes, the same one that increased my original sentence from 28 months
to 10 years !) So please, please, please do not let us rest on our laurels. Until my feet are planted like the Tree that grows in Brooklyn, and I am among my family, friends, and comrades and plunged back into the struggle once more, we must continue. Fight On!!