Lynne Stewart, fighting cancer, still hopes for a revolution

NEW YORK (AP) — A once-prominent New York civil rights lawyer convicted of helping a terrorist client communicate with his followers is still battling the cancer that earned her compassionate release from prison over two years ago — and she is still as radical as ever, even expressing support for the killers of police officers.

Lynne Stewart, a 76-year-old great-grandmother, said in an interview with The Associated Press at her Brooklyn home that she is increasingly drained of energy by a disease that was projected to kill her at least six months ago.

At the height of her legal career, the former schoolteacher represented clients who included Weather Underground radicals, cop killers and small-time criminals.

[...] the cancer has neither killed nor muzzled Stewart, a longtime believer in armed struggle as a way of fostering political revolution.

McAvoy, who worked with a unit focused on police integrity while employed recently by the Brooklyn district attorney's office, said most law enforcement officers are really good people.

Portraying herself as a political prisoner while incarcerated, Stewart said the government and her sentencing judge, John G. Koeltl, did the right thing by letting her go free, though she adds: "I'm sure the government doesn't like that I do champion these guys."