The US government announced the arrest of a second translator at the US prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, bringing total detentions there to three and raising new concern about the extent of possible espionage.
The latest man arrested was identified on Tuesday as Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, a 31-year-old Egyptian American. He is a civilian who formerly served in the US Army and twice started but failed to complete a military intelligence course to become an interrogator, two defense officials said on condition of anonymity.
Mehalba was medically discharged from the army in May 2001 and later hired by a private defense contractor to be a translator at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, they said.
Officials said they had no further information on why he didn't complete the courses, nor what the medical discharge was for.
The arrest was the third involving someone who worked closely with the largely Muslim, non-English-speaking population of about 660 suspected terrorist fighters being held at Guantanamo. The two other men, another translator and a Muslim chaplain, are both in the military.
Officials said still others are being investigated.
The arrest of a second translator raised new concern about how the military had checked the dozens of translators needed to help with interrogations of al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects whose native languages include Arabic, Pashto, Dari and Uighur.
At a brief hearing on Tuesday afternoon in US District Court in Boston, Mehalba entered no plea to a charge of making false statements and was detained pending another hearing scheduled for Oct. 8. He could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to US$250,000 if convicted of the charge.
Mehalba, wearing jeans and an orange golf shirt, said nothing during the hearing, except to tell the judge that he could not afford his own attorney.
Michael Andrews, the attorney who represented Mehalba at Tuesday's hearing, said, "He intends to vigorously defend himself against these charges."
Mehalba was arrested Monday at Boston's Logan International Airport after authorities found classified information in his possession, officials said on Tuesday.
Dennis Murphy, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said Mehalba is a naturalized US citizen originally from Egypt who had flown Monday to Boston from Cairo, with a stop in Milan, Italy.
Agents with Customs and Border Protection noticed Mehalba had a military identification card showing he was a contract linguist at Guantanamo Bay, according to a government affidavit filed in court.
Mehalba said he was private contractor for the US Army and showed an ID card for the US Naval base, where the Guantanamo prison is located.
He was carrying 132 compact discs, which he said contained only music and videos, the affidavit said. But agents checked his bags and found at least one that appeared to contain unspecified classified information, some of it marked "SECRET," the affidavit said.
Mehalba denied knowing how the information got on the disc, saying he bought the discs in Guantanamo "as blanks," the affidavit said.
Defense Department officials said Mehalba worked at Guantanamo for San Diego-based defense contractor Titan Corp, which did not return phone calls on Tuesday.
Some candidates for the translator jobs were found through the Internet, newspaper ads, language associations and word-of-mouth, a Titan official said in June 2002. They underwent health checks and extensive criminal record checks, and many underwent additional national security clearances and polygraph exams, the company said at the time.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese