Yury Schmidt, the esteemed human rights attorney, cautioned that the efficacious prosecution throughout Russia of scholars and researchers as spies in the last ten years has been coupled with harsher sentences. Four years ago, the former general director of the Central Machinery Construction Research Institution, Moscow scientist Igor Reshetin, was found guilty of handing over technology to the Chinese and received a sentence of eleven and a half years in a penal colony. He had justified his actions, claiming the technology’s nonclassified status permitted its export and international dialogue. Physicist Valentin Danilov in 2003 likewise was convicted of placing classified information in Chinese hands, and drew a similar sentence of 13 years in a penal colony. In fact, the only instance of acquittal in an espionage or treason case in the legal annals of the Soviet Union and modern Russia was that of the aforementioned researcher and ecologist Alexander Nikitin, the skillful defense having been mounted by the already heralded Mr. Schmidt. Nikitin, a onetime naval captain and submarine officer, authored a study on the environmental risks of radioactive waste and decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines, expressly in northern Russia, for the Norwegian ecological organization Bellona, resulting in an accusation of high treason being levelled against him.

As regards the current case, Afanasiev and Bobyshev disavowed any wrongdoing and contended that the Harbin period was devoted solely to teaching and, furthermore, that the contents of the lectures were under the strict supervision of the Military Mechanical University. Schmidt indicated that should convictions of the two men be secured, the prison terms would run from 12 to 20 years. The public will be barred from the proceedings.

Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies in the United States. Physics World reports that Kokabee allegedly divulged Iranian scientific data and was a CIA operative. The specific charges against him encompass unlawful earnings and contact with a hostile nation, a veiled reference to the CIA. The adviser for graduate studies in Kokabee’s department, John Keto, scoffed at Internet accounts that depicted the accused as a renowned nuclear physicist and maintained he was instead a beginning doctoral student in optics and photonics. His friends and colleagues suggest a likely motive for the arrest is to deter student involvement in the pro-democracy Green movement disputing the 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sources close to Kokabee gave his whereabouts while awaiting trial as Tehran’s Evin Prison, which has gained an infamous reputation for the many academic and political prisoners there as a result of Iran’s backlash against suspected spies for Western countries. The presiding judge at the trial is Abolghasem Salavati who, according to Eugene Chudnovsky of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, an international human rights organization, is noted for the severe penalties he imposes. Chudnovsky theorizes that a death sentence is within the realm of possibility, as a means to frighten Iranian students overseas. His organization has petitioned Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to grant clemency to Kokabee, while the accused’s attorneys feel that international pressure and the media spotlight might aid their client.

Lebanon’s military court handed down a death sentence on Monday, June 20th on Bassam Abu Jawdeh, a Lebanese merchant found guilty of espionage. The conviction was for working for Israeli intelligence and supplying them with information. Death penalty is imposed in Lebanon when an operative’s actions result in Lebanese life being lost. The death sentence is subject to the consent of the president, prime minister and justice minister. A request for the death penalty by the military tribunal at the beginning of this year concerned six Lebanese convicted of collaboration with the Israelis and indirectly causing the deaths of a number of Hezbollah militants.

The Lebanese Army has made more than 150 arrests since its clampdown on alleged spies began in 2007 and among those arrested were prominent military officials and telecommunications staff believed to be Israeli operatives. A recent case that has drawn great attention is that of one-time General Fayez Karam, a high ranking member of the Free Patriotic Movement, whose conviction on charges of collaboration with the Israelis brings with it a probable sentence of three to 15 years at hard labor. Another high profile case involves Col. Antoine Abu Jaoude, who is now on trial on charges of collaboration with the Israelis, by providing the Israeli Mossad with names and addresses of Lebanese Army and Hezbollah officials. A conviction could mean a death sentence by reason of treason.

Pakistan is countering these statements with claims of their own. The two men killed, say anonymous officials, were not robbers but employees of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. The officials stated that after tracking calls made from Davis’ cell phone, they were able to ascertain that he was in contact with people in the Waziristan tribal areas, where the Taliban and other militant groups have a safe haven. The men had been assigned to tail Davis because he was thought to be spying and that they did so for two hours before they came face to face with Davis.

The State Department’s spokesman, P.J. Crowley, says that “we don’t find the reports credible”. The U.S. maintains that Davis’ detention is illegal and is applying steadily increasing pressure to have him released. Secretary Clinton cancelled a meeting with the Pakistani Foreign Minister this week and threats are being made to cut off Pakistan’s military funding – about $2 billion in aid a year. The U.S. believes that Davis is being held only because releasing him may cause unrest in Pakistan, where anti-U.S. sentiments are common. The Pakistani officials partially agreed with that, acknowledging that Davis’ release could at least temporarily weaken the federal government and spark protests in Lahore, where the shootings took place, and perhaps across the country.

Recently, Davis appeared in court without a translator and without prior notification to the U.S. Officials say those events convinced them Davis could not receive a fair trial in Pakistan, although his diplomatic immunity excludes him from any trial at all. A Pakistani judge has extended his detention for another eight days while the government and judicial systems decide their next move.

During the opening session on Tuesday, the Italian appeals court was asked to reintroduce incriminating statements made by the Italian agents. These statements had been tossed because they were protected under Italian state secrecy. The court will reveal its decision about the statements on Monday, October 18.

The defendants are also rolling up their sleeves, filing appeals of their own. The lawyer for U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano has renewed his request for the trial to take place in an American court. He claims that because of SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), which the U.S and Italy signed, Italian authorities have no jurisdiction over the Aviano Air Force base. The base in Aviano is where the terrorism suspect was held before being removed to Egypt. The defense for one of the convicted Italians, Nicolo Pollari, has also requested that two Italian government officials be called to testify. Pollari, the former head of Military Intelligence, claims that Premier Silvio Berlusconi and former Premier Romano Prodi can prove his innocence.

While the courts mull over the appeals, Judge Oscar Magi stands by his original verdict. He says that using state secrecy as a defense creates an unnecessary tangle in the judicial system, especially when trying to identify the Italians’ roles in the kidnapping. He claims that Italian knowledge of the CIA operation is presumable, and that the Italian secret services were at least aware of, and maybe even acting in, the operation.

As reported earlier, Germany wanted Brodsky for his connection to the January 2010 assassination of important Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. It is believed that Brodsky, who was working in Germany at the time under the name of Alexander Werin, supplied Mossad agents with some of the forged passports they used to enter Dubai unnoticed and carry out their mission.

As soon as Brodsky was arrested in Poland, German officials called for his extradition. Despite Israel’s request to Poland and Germany – Israel being on good terms with both – to stop proceedings, Germany held firm. Prosecutors involved in the case insisted that the illegal use of official German documents in an assassination operation called for trial.

However, instead of facing the expected espionage charges in Cologne, Germany, Brodsky seems to have been let off with a slap on the wrist. The morning after his extradition to Germany on August 12, his trial for the forgery of official documents – which carries a significantly lighter maximum sentence of three years in prison – began with his release. Release on bail that is. Brodsky quickly made his way back to Israel, while Dubai officials protested, demanding Germany explain why it had released on bail a suspect in a murder case.

Israeli sources say that Brodsky will be represented in court by his attorneys – naturally. In Germany, a court official explained to reporters that “[t]he matter can now be dealt with by written proceedings.”

The China-North Korea border is a hotbed of activity for North Koreans looking to escape the clutches of an authoritarian government that offers little more than poverty and starvation to its citizens. From this area, South Korean activists and missionaries help North Koreans with defection, shelter, food and relocation to nations like South Korea and the U.S.

Of course, North Korea’s not too happy about the refugees streaming out of its supposedly wonderful state (more than 18,000 since 1953, when the war between the two Koreas ended in a tense truce). That’s where the recently arrested Kim (last name released only) comes in.

It all started when Kim was spending time in China’s eastern Shandong province in the late 90s, trafficking drugs. There he met a female North Korean agent, who recruited him to spy on behalf of North Korea in exchange for money and narcotics.

In 2000, Kim allegedly spent two weeks in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, where he received spy training plus $10,000 plus 2 kilos of drugs. Kim’s spy job? To head back to China, identify and kidnap South Korean activists, who would then be sent to North Korea with the help of the aforementioned female agent. Kim also allegedly kidnapped North Korean defectors who were still in hiding in China, en route to safer havens, and reported on the activity of South Korean intelligence in the area.

While Kim denies all charges, the prosecution has made it clear that he is suspected of having violated South Korea’s National Security Law, which could mean the death sentence.

James Fondren, 62, was sentenced today to 3 years in prison and a subsequent 2 years of supervised release. Once a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Fondren got into “consulting” after retiring from the military. And by that we mean that he got involved in espionage by sharing classified intel on U.S.-China military relations with Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Taiwan.

In March 1999, Kuo and Fondren travelled to China together, where Fondren met Kuo’s Chinese government contact. Fondren and the government official proceeded to exchange emails over the course of the next year. Hired into the civilian role of Deputy Director of the U.S. Pacific Command’s Washington Liaison Office, Fondren continued to associate with Kuo, providing him with so-called opinion papers in exchange for payment.

According to Fondren, the papers were a mix of publicly accessible news and his own personal opinion, but the court obviously found otherwise. At the Pacific Command, Fondren had top-secret clearance and access to a classified computer. He certainly had the means to provide Kuo with more than just personal opinion, and it didn’t help his case that Kuo testified against him.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton decided to issue a milder sentence than the 6.5 years requested by the prosecution because the information Fondren shared didn’t really compromise U.S. national security. Only convicted of 3 of the 8 counts brought against him, Fondren still plans to appeal the decision. His lawyer argues that Fondren did not realize Kuo was a spy.

Given the recent hubbub in the news about China’s aggressive cyber espionage – many say that the Google attack was neither the first nor the last – Fondren’s not likely to get much sympathy in the public eye.

President Obama labeled the narrowly avoided terrorist attack an intelligence and security “screw up,” berating his spy chiefs for not putting together the pieces until after the Nigerian was on board. Officials did identify him for extra questioning in Detroit, but had his explosives operated according to plan, neither he nor the other 289 people on board would have been around to hear – let along answer – any extra questions.

Obama intends to release the report that explains what went wrong on the inside – that is, which pieces of data were not analyzed properly. Apparently the connection between the various strands of intelligence is pretty evident, and the public will be surprised that it slid by the country’s top intelligence professionals. Given the information the U.S. had on Abdulmutallab, he should have been on a no-fly list and should never have been allowed to board flight 253.

One of these pieces of information is that Abdulmutallab’s father recently paid a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, warning them that his son was becoming a radical. Abdulmutallab was allegedly recruited by Al Qaeda in London.

Obama is likely choosing to be so candid about the mistake to save himself trouble later on. A congressional committee investigation is expected to follow, so the truth would have come out sooner or later. Republicans already depict Obama as soft on national security, and this example is just what they need to back up the statement.

Although Obama believes the intelligence community should be held accountable for the error, it doesn’t look like anyone’s about to resign or get the boot due to the oversight. No re-orgs needed either…we’re told it wasn’t so much a case of poor infrastructure and lack of info-sharing (like 9/11), but rather a case of not pulling the right data together to get the big picture – data mismanagement, so to speak.

Abdulmutallab was indicted on December 26, 2009 and now faces trial for bringing a destructive device onto an airplane, attempting to blow up an airplane, the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted murder of 289 people.

In 1986, he blabbed details and shared photos of Israel’s nuclear weapons program (which Israel neither acknowledges nor denies) to the British media. The British Sunday Times went on to publish the first evidence that Israel had the capacity to make nuclear bombs. Israel was obviously not pleased about the leak, and a Mossad sting subsequently lured Vanunu to Rome, where he was captured and forced to return to Israel by intelligence operatives.

In Israel, the whistleblower was tried and convicted for espionage and treason. He served 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement. Released in 2004, he has been taken into custody numerous times since for breaking the terms of his parole, as he did on Monday, by meeting with a Norwegian national in a hotel. He has now been put under house arrest, where he is awaiting an indictment.

According to his lawyer, Vanunu is only interested romantically in the Norwegian woman he met.

Vanunu feels that he’s been mistreated in Israel largely due to his conversion to Christianity. During a recent court hearing, he made a plea to President Obama, with the hopes of being able to live under less scrutiny: “Obama wants a world free of nuclear weapons, and he should push for my release.”

Vanunu’s been campaigning to be allowed to leave Israel, which doesn’t seem like a possibility, given the recent arrest for meeting with a foreigner. While some think that Israel has gone too far with Vanunu (cartoons protesting the length and severity of his punishment abound), Israeli authorities are concerned that he is privy to and will reveal more nuclear secrets, so they’re unlikely to loosen their grip…

On the subject of the three American hikers, whom Ahmadinejad has in past promised to help release, the Iranian President was rather curt, bordering on aggressive.

Sawyer wanted to know – given last week’s news that the three will likely be tried for espionage shortly – whether Ahmadinejad still intends to help secure the hikers’ freedom. According to Ahmadinejad, they are still alleged spies, not just ‘hikers.’ He answered Sawyers questions with a few of his own:

“How do you know they have accidentally crossed into Iran? How do you know they were looking for waterfalls and forests? Who has told you this? Are you a judge?”

Sawyer tried to respond, but Ahmadinejad, whose questions were aimed at making a point not eliciting an answer, cut her off:

“Just let me finish. Have the intelligence agents told you this?”

His point is this: they may well be hikers, but on the other hand, they may well be spies. The CIA isn’t exactly going to come out and expose the hikers’ cover to the world while Clinton is saying there’s absolutely no evidence that their crossing into Iran was espionage-related.

Ahmadinejad believes that only a court of law will be able to review the evidence and rule one way or the other. Of course the transparency into the legal process in Iran, especially on a case like this, will be nil. There isn’t much faith amongst the international community that Iran can offer a ‘fair trial’ to these three Americans.

On the subject of the leaked document that confirms the military intentions behind Iran’s nuclear development, Ahmadinejad refused to even look at the document (a copy of which Sawyer held out to him).

He says the document is a U.S. fabrication. “I think that some of the claims about our nuclear issue have turned into a repetitive and tasteless joke,” says Ahmadinejad.

If only it were just a joke…but when it comes to Iran, all indication seems to be to the contrary.

Image from ABC

Held in the Evin prison in Tehran, the three Americans – Shane Bauer, 27; Sarah Shourd, 31; and Josh Fattal, 27 – have been visited by Swiss diplomats and are reportedly in good health.

Despite protests and requests from senior officials, as well as parents and friends, to release the seemingly innocent trio from prison and from Iran, the country’s foreign minister said today that the three would be put on trial given their “suspicious aims.”

According to Tehran chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, investigations concerning the three border-crossers are still in progress. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterates that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the three hikers were acting as spies.

It is widely assumed that Iran aims to use the three – talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time – as bargaining chips. As the world threatens tougher sanctions against Iran unless it stems its uranium enrichment plans, Iran thinks it may be able to negotiate a better deal for itself once it has “convicted spies” to bargain with.

Judicial proceedings in Iran tend to happen behind closed doors (unless they’re being aired on Iranian TV as a preventative example to others who are considering the protest of election fraud and the like), so chances are strong we’ll have little insight into the trial itself.

Does anybody actually think backpackers Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were on a mission to gather intelligence for the CIA in Iran?

The answer is a resounding no. Commentators listening to what Ahmadinejad says on the topic are convinced that he, too, knows the trio are guilty only of crossing the border without permission to do so. Espionage is a slightly more serious offense – punishable by death under Islamic sharia law.

So what’s Iran got up its sleeves?

Bargaining chips in nuclear talks, in the release of Iranian diplomats apparently holed up in Iraq. This also means that Iran and/Ahmadinejad get to be the good guys once it’s all over. Think Saberi. An American ‘breaks the law’ in Iran. Iran arrests and prosecutes to the full extent of the law. Public U.S. outcry and diplomatic negotiations lead to reduced sentence and release. Then the U.S. has to thank Iran and Ahmadinejad for being lenient, despite trumped-up charges.

In the meantime, the families of the hikers are rallying for support, participating in vigils and raising awareness on Facebook. Perhaps they are able to take comfort in the recent ‘spy’ releases from Iran and North Korea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to ask Iran to show compassion and release the hikers so that they may return home to their families.

Turned out the CIA had the wrong guy. The cleric didn’t exactly keep quiet upon his release from prison several years later, and following an extended investigation and trial in Italy, the Americans involved were convicted in absentia to five years in prison each, except for the person who served as the CIA Milan station chief at the time – he got eight.

Various Washington officials expressed their disappointment at the verdict, but the CIA did not comment. Italian military intelligence was involved in the organization and carrying out of the operation, but either under better protection or not in particularly great numbers seeing as only two Italians were convicted, each to three years.

One of the Americans, Sabrina DeSousa – who is no longer with the CIA and sought to get the U.S. to invoke diplomatic immunity on her behalf – is extremely upset about being “abandoned and betrayed” and has spoken out to ABC News about her frustration with her previous employer.

Although she did not give any details about her role in the kidnapping, she admitted to breaking the law but only with the express authorization and direction of her superiors in Washington – the people who, now that the operation has been exposed, are being extremely quiet.

DeSousa did not confirm that she was a CIA officer, but says she should have been protected by diplomatic immunity as she worked for the State Department as a diplomat in the U.S. Consulate in Milan. According to the Italian prosecutor, as well as various other unnamed former CIA folks, the diplomat role was DeSousa’s cover, but she is nonetheless indignant about being “hung out to dry,” as described by Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

It appears that U.S.-Italy intelligence relations will be somewhat strained moving forward, as confirmed by intelligence officers from both countries. International intelligence collaboration doesn’t always pan out when you suspect the wrong people…

The five men, each originally receiving sentences ranging from 15 years to life, were convicted of 26 counts of espionage. Later, an appeals court ruled that the sentences for three of the five men were too harsh, given that no U.S. secrets were actually discovered and shared with Cuba. So even though the men allegedly intended to uncover confidential military information and pass it on to Cuba, their failure to do so seems to have acted in their favor.

Antonio Guerrero managed to sneak his way into the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West, Florida but never got his hands on any classified information. The resulting reduced sentence means he has 11 more years to serve in prison. His attorney, Leonard Weinglass, reckons he’ll be out in seven, given that he can expect additional reductions for good behavior.

Prior to today’s sentencing, a 20-year-sentence deal was made between Guerrero and prosecutors, but Judge Joan Lenard issued a sentence of 21 years and 10 months, stating after the hearing that “Mr. Guerrero made no statement of contrition,” even though he was convicted of “very serious offenses.”

The re-sentencing of the other two men has been postponed.

The matter of the Cuban Five remains a contentious one in U.S.-Cuban relations. In Cuba, the five are venerated as heroes, and their full release is often called for.