A New York lawyer infamous for defending terrorists said he is providing legal assistance to Hamas members in Gaza and elsewhere.
“I continue to represent various Palestinian movements and individuals. I’ve done it since 1995,” said Stanley Cohen, a self-described radical lawyer whose website boasts of having “Hamas on the phone.”
“I speak with Hamas representatives as necessary to obtain legal advice and on matters pending in international courts,” said Cohen, 70, who has also represented members of Hezbollah and al Qaeda.
The lawyer says he recently communicated with Hamas members in Gaza and abroad, but declined to specify when, with whom or about what.
Hamas leaders are known to live in luxurious compounds in friendly host countries.
Former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal called for an international day of Jihad this week from his hideout in Qatar.
Cohen was raised as an Orthodox Jew but abandoned the faith.
Cohen has attracted attention and made enemies as a lawyer for Hamas and other nefarious terrorist groups. AFP via Getty Images
“I walked away a long time ago, when the effort to combine a 120-year-old European colonial project with a 3,000-year-old faith took hold,” he said.
Last week, Hamas fighters stormed into Israel from Gaza, killing 1,300 people and taking at least 150 hostage.
Among the victims were dozens of babies, some of whom were burned alive and decapitated.
Among the dead were 27 Americans.
Cohen was unrepentant.
Cohen represented Osama Bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for plotting to kill Americans.
“Do I agree with the idea that Palestinians have the right to armed struggle? I agree,” he said, calling Israeli “settlers” and soldiers “legitimate targets under international law.”
On Thursday he published in X that a “Dear Friend” He had died during the fighting in Gaza.
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“A retired general, he served for many years with [late Palestine president Yasser Arafat],” he wrote.
Another tweeted image he posted in 2021 shows him smiling with former Hamas terrorist leaders Ahmed Yassin and Ismail Abu Shanab, who were later killed by the Israeli army.
Cohen, who resides primarily in the Catskills but travels periodically to New York City, said he does not accept money from Hamas and that his legal work for the terrorist organization was pro-bono.
In 2014, Cohen was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being accused of failing to file six years’ worth of tax returns.
The colorful litigator represented Osama Bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for plotting to kill Americans. He portrayed Weather Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and Larry Davis, who shot six NYPD officers in the South Bronx in 1986.
Cohen’s work has spawned a cottage industry of critics, some of whom are mentioned in a special area of his website dedicated to “haters.”
“Thank God that Hamas is represented by a lawyer as incompetent and intolerant as Stanley Cohen. They deserve each other,” said Alan Dershowitz, a longtime Harvard Law professor.
“There is a big difference between defending the constitutional rights of accused terrorists and supporting their current terrorism ideologically, as Cohen appears to be doing.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn