Word: halaby
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Officials also want to know if he is linked to Ahmad al-Halabi, an Air Force senior airman and translator who was stationed at the base at the same time as Yee. The Pentagon disclosed last week that al-Halabi, who was arrested on July 23, faces 32 criminal charges, including four counts of violating the Federal Espionage Act. The military says al-Halabi, 24, tried to funnel classified information on Guantanamo prisoners to a Syrian government agent. Al-Halabi says he is innocent, and Syria's Information Minister calls the notion that al-Halabi or anyone else was spying...
Pentagon officials say it is likely that Yee and al-Halabi knew each other, given that they shared a faith and cramped quarters at Guantanamo. Officials don't know if the two conspired with each other or if they're the only ones to have allegedly spied. As many as four other military personnel, among them a Navy sailor who served there, are also being investigated. How is it that in a place this physically impenetrable, security may have been compromised by "an enemy within," as one Air Force officer put it? Were these alleged spies simply not vetted properly...
...Halabi was also the kid next door. A Syrian immigrant who spent part of his childhood in Damascus, he came to the U.S. in the 1990s to live with his father, a cook, in Dearborn, Mich. At Fordson High School, he was known as a shy, responsible student who distinguished himself by getting into the highly competitive robotics club. By senior year, he had assimilated "as well as anyone" into American teenage culture, says his former robotics coach Steven Scott. After graduating in 1999, al-Halabi enlisted in the Air Force; his defense lawyers say he was a "star performer...
...translator, al-Halabi attended interrogation sessions of al-Qaeda suspects and Taliban fighters. According to his indictment, al-Halabi e-mailed classified information about detainees at Guantanamo to people he "knew to be the enemy." He attempted to deliver two handwritten notes and more than 180 electronic versions of letters from prisoners to a third party to be carried to Syria. He took unauthorized photos of Camp Delta. And he sent a box of possessions, including classified documents, to his address at Travis Air Force Base in California. He was scheduled to fly to Syria to get married only...
...curious thing about the al-Halabi case is that the military had concerns about him before he was sent to Cuba. The Air Force began watching him shortly before he shipped out because of reports of suspicious activity while he was at Travis. He remained under surveillance at Guantanamo. Air Force officials offered no explanation for his being allowed to serve in such a sensitive post despite being under suspicion...