Guilty of Terrorism??? Translator, following defense lawyer's

instructions, "could face 20 years in prison for translating a letter from imprisoned Muslim cleric Omar Abdel Rahman to Rahman's lawyer in Egypt."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/15/AR2006011500940_pf.html

The prosecution and conviction of Stewart, 66, on charges of aiding terrorist activity, drew international attention, overshadowing Yousry's case. But legal experts, civil liberties lawyers and a juror say Yousry's conviction raises many troubling questions, not least how a court-appointed translator working on instruction from lawyers could be held responsible for navigating complicated and dangerous legal waters.
<snip>
Yousry had no legal training and translated nothing without instruction from defense lawyers. He passed rigorous federal security clearance checks. A PhD candidate at New York University, Yousry harbored no affinity for Rahman, writing that the cleric promoted "Muslim totalitarianism."
<snip>
A month after the trial, a female juror wrote to U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, complaining that fellow jurors talked of terrorist attacks and their desire to teach the defendants a lesson. "They had an agenda," Juror 39 told The Washington Post in her first interview. "People are so fearful that if you disagree with the government on one thing it makes you a terrorist. "I have to plead guilty to being a coward," Juror 39, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said of her vote to convict. "It doesn't feel good, but I punked out."
<snip>
The FBI ultimately recorded thousands of hours of Yousry's telephone conversations and electronic activity over three years, but prosecutors introduced none of those tapes into evidence. Yousry never spoke to Rahman without the lawyers' permission, even when left alone with him. Nor, transcripts show, did the prosecutors offer evidence to back up assertions that Yousry talked to militants in the Middle East. Prosecutors argued that Yousry metaphorically closed his eyes to the bad characters around him. They noted that he padded his résumé and suggested that he addressed Rahman as "spiritual master" to show allegiance; in fact, it's a common Arabic honorific. Prosecutors speculated that Yousry betrayed the nation in hopes of gaining a Harvard teaching position.

were afraid of disagreeing with the government?