[lbo-talk] The Cat Stevens Connection

[srobin21 at comcast.net]

(There is a Lynne Stewart connection to the Cat Stevens incident. Evidently his name came up in an attorney client converstation between Stewart and his client. Evidently, because the blind sheik thought Stevens might donate some money to one of his cause, the former Cat Stevens is now barred from the US. Of course, the article below does not comment on how it is that attorney client conversations are now part of the public record)
THE CAT STEVENS CONNECTION
By Patricia Hurtado
Staff Writer
September 23, 2004
While many were puzzling over the government's announcement that former songbird Cat Stevens is on terrorist watch lists, a hint to his possible terrorist connections came up earlier this month in the trial of attorney Lynne Stewart.
Stevens, 56, became a Muslim and changed his name to Yusuf Islam in the late 1970s.
Evidence presented in Stewart's trial in Manhattan federal court shows radical Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who she represented in 1995, wanted the singer to join a defense committee he was forming in 2000.
On a tape of a secretly wiretapped prison conversation from May 2000, a lively comical discussion ensues as Abdel-Rahman and Arabic interpreter Mohamed Yousry attempt to remember Islam's English stage name.
"Add Yusuf Islam," Abdel-Rahman dictates to Yousry in Arabic. "That singer ... he was a famous singer, then God changed his life. That British singer."
"Lynne do you know this guy who was a member of the Beatles or something ... and now he is a Muslim?" Yousry asks.
"Is it Ringo?" Stewart asks puzzled. "Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr ... the drummer, and the third one who was never around, George Harrison?"
"Maybe," Yousry replied. "He is one of those. He was one of the Beatles."
"Oh yeah, he was the most famous," the sheik concurs in Arabic.
"Interesting," Stewart replies, totally confused.
After court yesterday, Stewart said Abdel-Rahman may have met Islam in London while both were trying to raise funds for Chechnya. But Stewart said none of Islam's money was funneled to the sheik or his defense. 
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. 
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