An ex-CIA officer who helped track down and capture a top al-Qaeda figure was charged on Monday with disclosing classified secrets, including the role of one of his associates on that covert mission, in the latest of a series of US prosecutions of suspected leakers.
John Kiriakou, 47, is charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act. A federal judge ordered Kiriakou to be released on a US$250,000 unsecured bond.
Kiriakou declined to comment as he left the courthouse on Monday.
According to authorities, Kiriakou divulged to three journalists, including a New York Times reporter, the role of “Officer B,” who worked with Kiriakou on the capture of suspected al-Qaeda financier Abu Zubaydah in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, and his case has been made an example by those who believe the interrogation technique should be outlawed. And Kiriakou’s public discussions of Zubaydah’s waterboarding were a key part of the debate.
In a separate accusation, Kiriakou is alleged to have disclosed the identity of a covert operator to an unidentified journalist. Authorities say that journalist then gave the officer’s name to a team of defense lawyers representing a suspect the US held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. When the lawyers included information about the officer in a sealed legal brief in 2009, the CIA became suspicious and the government began to investigate.
The affidavit states that the defense lawyers were found to have done nothing wrong. According to the affidavit, FBI agents interviewed Kiriakou last week, and he denied leaking the information. When specifically asked whether he had provided the Zubaydah interrogator’s name to the Times for a 2008 article, he replied, “Heavens, no.”
A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
Kiriakou’s attorney, Plato Cacheris, told reporters after the hearing that his client would plead not guilty. He also said a potential defense argument could be that the charges criminalize conduct that has been common between reporters and government sources for decades.
If convicted, Kiriakou could face up to 30 years in prison and a US$1 million fine.
The case was secretly investigated by a top federal prosecutor, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is best known for his successful prosecutions of Scooter Libby, former US vice president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, for perjury and of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich for corruption.
Kiriakou has worked as a consultant to ABC News, although he hasn’t appeared on the network since early 2009.
The charges also accuse Kiriakou of lying about his actions in an effort to convince the CIA to let him publish a book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, in 2010.
The Department of Justice’s campaign to prosecute leakers has been very aggressive under US President Barack Obama.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of