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Antiwar N.J. pastor fights fine

U.S. censure for his early-2003 trip to Iraq violated his rights, his lawyer told a judge.

NEW YORK - Lawyers for a North Jersey clergyman who defied regulations and visited Iraq in 2003 to protest the pending U.S.-led invasion argued yesterday that the government had unfairly singled him out for censure because of his antiwar stance.

A lawyer for the Rev. Frederick Boyle, pastor at the United Methodist Church in Linden, told a federal judge that the government had violated Boyle's constitutional rights and that his $6,700 fine should be nullified.

"He was targeted because he spoke out against the war," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer from the Brennan Center for Justice, an advocacy group in New York, who is arguing Boyle's civil lawsuit.

Boyle sued the government in 2005, asserting violations of his First and Fifth Amendment rights and international law.

Yesterday's hearing was on a U.S. Attorney's Office motion to dismiss the suit. There was no immediate ruling by Judge Donald Pogue in U.S. District Court in New York.

In addition to fines, Hafetz said, Boyle could face up to 12 years in prison if prosecutors decided to charge him criminally for the banned travel.

His lawyers contend that his antiwar advocacy was a core part of his constitutionally protected religious beliefs, and that he was not given an opportunity to defend himself after he was fined.

A federal attorney argued that the government had been entitled to restrict travel to prewar Iraq. Prosecutor Ross E. Morrison also argued there was no evidence to support Boyle's allegation that the government ignored other people's trips to Iraq and targeted him because of his vocal opposition to the war.

Morrison told the judge that Boyle's constitutional rights to express his antiwar opinions had not been violated because the pastor could have voiced his opposition in "numerous ways and numerous places" besides Iraq.

Boyle took his nine-day trip to Iraq in February and March 2003. At the time, the U.S. government effectively barred U.S. citizens from traveling to Iraq. Those restrictions have been lifted.

Boyle, 58, describes himself as a pacifist and said he had felt compelled to act because of the preemptive nature of the U.S. invasion.

"That the United States has on other occasions fought wars to end war is starkly different than starting a war," Boyle said after the hearing.