Judge: Doctor Can't Treat Terrorists
So now along with everything else, we have the Hippocratic Oath also being tossed out the window. Damn these immoral demons who pass such laws! They should themselves be sentenced to prison for their inhuman decisions! They became barbarians in the true sense of the term. They are taking human civilization back to the Dark Ages. What do we do, dear readers, against such displays of inhumanity towards our fellow human beings? How do we stop the onslaught of crimes after crimes against suffering humanity? - WPA
Wednesday January 31, 2007 1:01 AM
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - A doctor accused of pledging to treat al-Qaida members can be prosecuted because medical care counts as material support to terrorists under federal law, a judge said Tuesday.
Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, an Ivy League-educated doctor, had argued it was unconstitutional to prosecute a doctor for providing medical services.
He was arrested in May 2005 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla., accused in a plot to assist terrorist organizations along with a New York jazz musician, a Brooklyn bookstore owner and a former Washington, D.C., cabdriver. Sabir has pleaded not guilty and remained jailed since his arrest.
He was charged with conspiring to provide material support or resources to a terrorist organization from October 2003 through May 2005 by providing and trying to provide medical support to wounded terrorists, knowing that al-Qaida engages in terrorist activity.
U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ruled against Sabir's motions to dismiss the indictment at a pretrial hearing on Jan. 17, and explained herself in a written decision released Tuesday.
She said ``any reasonable doctor'' would know from the plain language of federal law that pledging to provide medical support to al-Qaida would be a form of outlawed ``expert advice or assistance.''
The judge said Sabir is not charged merely for being a doctor or for performing medical services.
``Here, Sabir is alleged essentially to have volunteered as a medic for the al-Qaida military, offering to make himself available specifically to attend to the wounds of injured fighters,'' she said. ``Much as a military force needs weapons, ammunition, trucks, food and shelter, it needs medical personnel to tend to its wounded.''
Sabir's lawyer, Edward Wilford, did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday.