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| Translator said to carry sensitive data |
| 2003-10-02 |
| A few more details and background. EFL: A translator at the federal prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba who was arrested at Logan International Airport this week was carrying a computer disk that contained the names of suspected terrorists who had been mentioned during interrogations at the camp, according to two federal law enforcement officials. That’s damaging, the bad guys will know who we’re looking for. Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is trying to track Ahmed Fathy Mehalba’s movements during the past two months, when he says he was in Egypt visiting family, to determine whether he shared the classified material, according to the two officials. Mehalba, 31, an Egyptian-born linguist and US citizen who worked as a civilian Arabic interpreter during interrogations of inmates at the camp, had security clearance and had been privy to some "very sensitive" information that surfaced during questioning. Ken Kaiser, the special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Boston office, refused to discuss details of the investigation yesterday, but said, "It’s a pretty big investigation the bureau’s got going right now. We’ve dedicated a lot of resources in this office to this. . . . We’ve got leads out all over the country right now." During a search of Mehalba’s luggage when he arrived at Logan on Monday afternoon on a flight from Cairo, via Milan, a Customs and Border Protection officer found 132 computer disks, including one that contained classified information, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court on Tuesday. The disk also contained the names of suspected terrorists who are being detained at Guantanamo Bay, US officials said. Before, the bad guys just knew they were MIA, now they know who’s in the bag. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mehalba, who worked for a private company that had a contract with the Department of Defense to provide interpreters to the Cuban base, was using the information in his work as a translator or whether he was smuggling secrets to terrorists overseas, one federal official said. I’ll take "smuggling secrets" for $500, Alex. Mehalba, who has an ex-wife and daughter in Ipswich and has lived at various addresses around Greater Boston, is charged with making false statements to law enforcement officials by denying that he was carrying any classified material. He said the disks contained "only music and videos," according to the FBI affidavit. He’s been ordered held without bail until a hearing Oct. 8 in federal court in Worcester. Boston attorney Michael C. Andrews, who represents Mehalba, said yesterday that federal officials have yet to disclose to him the nature of the classified documents found on the disks. "I have not been told what is on the documents," he said. "I have not seen the documents." Because they’re secret. In recent years, Mehalba shifted between at least five different addresses including one in Lynn, where neighbors said he went to night school, and another in Woburn, which he listed as his hometown in a personal ad he posted recently on AmericanSingles.com. Sounds like he was short of bucks and lonely, perfect mark to recruit as a spy. Most recently, he collected mail at a condominium in North Chelmsford, a two-bedroom that belongs to the niece of a man he listed as his next of kin on a car loan application. Wonder if he really is next of kin. Monday night, eight or nine FBI agents arrived there to question the young woman, whom one neighbor described as a student in her early 20s living with a boyfriend. 8 or 9 to question one girl? They expect to find Osama hiding under her bed? Mehalba, who came to the United States more than a decade ago, served in the US Army from 2000 to 2001. He failed to complete a military intelligence course at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., to become an interrogator and was discharged for medical reasons in 2001. He worked an array of jobs in the Boston area, including as a taxi driver and a diamond consultant. Taxi drivers are my first choice when selecting diamonds. Two days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he applied for a job as a gatekeeper at the Massachusetts Port Authority, according to officials. Real good timing, suprised they didn’t hire him He applied for a job as an Arabic linguist at Titan Corp. last year and began working at Guantanamo Bay in January of this year, according to Wil Williams, a spokesman for the company. He said Mehalba said he had a family emergency and was granted a leave of absence in July, and remains an employee. Mehalba, like all the civilian linguists at the Guantanamo prison camp, was granted security clearance after the government conducted a background check, Williams said. I’d say they’re rechecking all these about now. While linguists are authorized to work with classified material, they are prohibited from leaving the base with it, he said. Well, duh! "Generally speaking, you’re not supposed to be in possession of classified material unless you have a need to know and clearance for it," Williams said. It’s not "generally speaking", it’s freaking holy writ as anyone who’s had a clearance knows. Robert Schlabach, an FBI supervisory agent on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, composed of 16 federal, local, and state agencies, yesterday praised the Customs Border and Protection officer who stopped Mehalba and decided to conduct a more thorough search of his baggage. Mehalba had shown officers his US Department of Defense Uniformed Service card and said another badge on his belt was secret, according to an FBI affidavit. "That’s my secret badge, bet you ain’t got one." Then he showed the officers his identification card for the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay. Two other employees at the base have recently been held for security breaches. And then the red flags and bells went off. I’ll bet, being overseas and in transit, he hadn’t heard about the first busts. "The Customs officer did an outstanding job of screening Mr. Mehalba on his reentry and had it not been for his actions we would have been unaware of the fact that he had been carrying the information at all," Schlabach said. "If he hadn’t been a complete and utter moron, he wouldn’t have been caught." |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 132 computer disks? Whether they were CD's or "floppies", that's a heck of a lot of disks. That would tip me off at Customs right away, only as a song pirate. RIAA and all that. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2003-10-2 10:58:13 AM |
| #1 Robert Schlabach, an FBI supervisory agent on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, composed of 16 federal, local, and state agencies, yesterday praised the Customs Border and Protection officer who stopped Mehalba and decided to conduct a more thorough search of his baggage. Uh oh. It won't be surprising if at some point in time during all this someone is going to scream that Mehalba was racially profiled and file some sort of lawsuit on that basis. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-2 10:25:42 AM |