Jan. 9 (UPI) -- A man convicted of encouraging Muslims to fight overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks engaged in lawful free speech, a federal appellate court ruled Friday.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' three-judge panel in Virginia vacated Ali al-Timimi's convictions after ruling he engaged in constitutionally protected free speech and did not violate any laws.
"The First Amendment does not permit the government to imprison a person for speech unless that speech falls within a narrow and well-defined category of unprotected expressions -- such as incitement of imminent lawless action or speech that intentionally solicits or facilitates a specific crime," Circuit Judge James Wynn said in the unanimous ruling.
"Ali al-Timimi was convicted based entirely on words he spoke in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- words that were inflammatory, disturbing and deeply offensive, but that urged no concrete criminal plan and did not provide operational assistance for the commission of any particular offense," Wynn wrote.
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