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US sailor pleads guilty to espionage
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US sailor pleaded guilty to espionage after admitting to stealing a laptop from a fast attack submarine and peddling classified information to an unidentified foreign government, a US Navy spokesman said. Petty officer 3rd Class Ariel Weinmann, 22, entered the guilty plea in Norfolk, Va., before a military judge, who questioned him on each of the charges, including desertion, espionage, failure to obey a general order, larceny and destruction of military property. "He plead guilty to all charges and specifications with the exception of the espionage charge," said Ted Brown. "He pled guilty to one specification (of espionage) and he pled not guilty to two specifications." The espionage charge said Weinmann "did ... communicate, deliver or transmit classified confidential and secret information relating to the national defense, to a representative, officer, agent or employee of a foreign government" on October 19, 2005 in Vienna, Austria, Brown said. Brown said the guilty plea was part of a pre-trial agreement, but it was not known what it entailed. Weinmann faces a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole. The charges did not identify the country that Weinmann passed information to, but a defense official said earlier this year that it was believed to be Russia. Weinmann was accused of making an electronic copy of classified confidential or secret defense information while serving as a fire control technician aboard the USS Albuquerque sometime between May and July 2005. On July 1, he stole a laptop computer on board the submarine and two days later deserted while the vessel was at a base at New London, Connecticut, according to the charge sheets. Weinmann pleaded not guilty to an espionage charge that he turned over confidential or secret classified information to foreign agents in Manama, Bahrain in March 2005 and in Mexico City on 19 March 2006. Weinmann destroyed the laptop's hard drive "by smashing it with a mallet and cutting off the pins" in March 2006, according to the destruction of government property charge that he admitted. He was arrested 26 March at the Fort Worth/Dallas International Airport by immigration and customs officials after they learned he was listed as a deserter. When are they gonna start shooting these bastards? Posted by: tu3031 2006-12-04 |
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