While they passed along no US secrets, the 10 Russian sleeper agents involved in the spy swap posed a potential threat to the US and received “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from Russia, US Attorney General Eric Holder said.
“Russia considered these people as very important to their intelligence-gathering activities,” he told CBS television’s’ Face the Nation in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
Holder defended the decision to allow the 10 to return to Russia in exchange for the release of four Russian prisoners accused of spying for the West because the swap presented “an opportunity to get back ... four people in whom we have a great deal of interest.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, sidestepping the question of whether Russia’s espionage poses a threat to the US, said the swap came amid improved relations between the two countries.
“The economic discussions that [Russian] President [Dmitry] Medvedev and [US] President [Barack] Obama had just recently and the progress that we’ve made in reducing nuclear weapons — and hopefully we’ll get a treaty through the Senate this summer that will further reduce nuclear weapons — means our security is stronger and safer and our relationship is stronger,” Gibbs said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Holder also sought to erase concern over the fate of the children of the Russian agents, saying they all were allowed to return to Russia “consistent with their parents wishes” or, in the case of those who were adults or nearly adults, were allowed to make their own choices of where to live.
“The children have all been handled, I think, in an appropriate way,” he said.
The seven offspring embroiled in the spy saga ranged in age from a one-year-old to a 38-year-old architect. In most cases they were born and grew up in the US, making them US citizens.
On pending terrorism cases, Holder acknowledged “there’s a real question” as to whether a terrorist suspect such as self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can face the death penalty if he were to plead guilty before a military commission.
Holder indicated he still favors bringing Mohammed and four alleged accomplices before civilian courts, but that has been met with opposition in Congress and elsewhere.
He said no decision has been made on where the trials will be held or whether they would be civilian or military.
He said one roadblock is that Congress has yet to come up with the money for the trials.
“The politicization of this issue when we’re dealing with ultimate national security issues is something that disturbs me a great deal,” Holder said.
Holder also said the closing of the Guantanamo detention camp has become more difficult “because there have been people who have changed their positions” and Congress hasn’t agreed to provide the money to relocate the detainees to an underused state prison in Illinois.
He said other states have offered to take the prisoners, but did not name any states.
“There is no reason to believe that people held in Guantanamo cannot be held wherever we put them in the United States. Again, very safely and very effectively,” Holder said.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS