First, Do No Harm!

A creative defense emerges for a man accused of supporting terrorists:

The Columbia University-educated doctor charged with promising to provide medical care to Al Qaeda operatives will argue that professional ethics require him to offer medical aid to all patients, even terrorists.

This legal defense by the accused doctor, Rafiq Sabir, is outlined for the first time in court papers submitted recently in Manhattan. Lawyers for Dr. Sabir will challenge whether rendering medical services to terrorists counts as providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, which is illegal under federal law. The case against Dr. Sabir presents questions about the line separating an ethical physician from a terrorist supporter who happens to hold an M.D.

Dr. Sabir, of Boca Raton, Fla., is one of four co-defendants charged with a loosely connected plot to aid Al Qaeda that prosecutors made public last year. In a Bronx apartment in late May 2005, Dr. Sabir swore fealty to Osama bin Laden and pledged to provide medical assistance to jihadists who were wounded while training, a criminal complaint charged.

But in a recent court filing, Mr. Sabir’s attorneys, Edward Wilford and Natali Todd, argue that the prosecution is unconstitutional because it impinges on a doctor’s ability to practice medicine.

“As a medical doctor, Dr. Sabir is committed to saving lives, regardless of the status of the individuals because to do otherwise, would be to violate his cannons of ethics,” his attorneys wrote. “A doctor, similar to an attorney, should not be limited to who he can treat, however unpopular such an individual may be.”