Federal prosecutors on Tuesday accused a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer of betraying the US by selling military secrets to China for greed and money, but his defense countered that the information he passed on was “obvious” and “well-known.”
Noshir Gowadia, 66, disclosed “vulnerabilities of our nation’s most important strategic assets” and helped design a stealth cruise missile for China that would evade infrared sensors and defeat US heat-seeking missiles, assistant US attorney Ken Sorenson told jurors during opening statements.
Sorenson said the India-born naturalized US citizen did so — and also marketed his services to Switzerland, Israel and Germany — in part because he desperately needed more money to pay the mortgage on his mansion-like home overlooking Maui’s North Shore.
Gowadia has pleaded not guilty to 17 counts, including conspiracy, violating the arms export control act and money laundering. He has been held in federal detention since his October 2005 arrest because a judge decided he was a flight risk.
Gowadia’s trial date has been repeatedly delayed over the past four years in part because lawyers on both sides needed time to review large volumes of classified evidence.
Defense attorney David Klein told jurors that the information his client passed to others wasn’t classified, while the cruise-missile exhaust nozzle design that the engineer sold to China used obvious, well-known information.
However, the prosecution quoted from a statement Gowadia gave to investigators in 2005, shortly before he was arrested, in which he allegedly acknowledged wrongdoing.
Klein told jurors Gowadia made that and other statements to federal investigators under severe pressure, noting agents ransacked Gowadia’s home in Haiku and interrogated him for nine days before his arrest.
“Gowadia decided he would tell investigators what they wanted to hear,” Klein said. “He was scared for himself, his wife, his children.”
Klein acknowledged his client exchanged e-mails with Chinese officials that included claims about the powerful capabilities of the exhaust nozzle. However, Klein said a close examination of Gowadia’s design showed it wouldn’t perform as claimed.
“If the Chinese thought they were getting more than they were, he was OK with that,” he said. “Because he knew the Chinese were getting nothing.”
Both sides told jurors that from 1968 to 1986, Gowadia worked at Northrop Corp, now Northrop Grumman Corp, and that he helped design the propulsion system for the B-2 stealth bomber.
Sorenson said Gowadia first relayed classified information to China about the B-2 bomber to establish his bona fides. Gowadia later relayed more classified information by designing a low-observable exhaust nozzle for a Chinese cruise missile, he said.
The prosecutor outlined six trips Gowadia made to China between 2003 and 2005. The first trip was to establish contacts there and be vetted by the Chinese government, and then later to explain and test his cruise missile designs, he said.
Gowadia approached China because he wanted to sell military secrets — not the other way around, Sorenson said.
“He was a walk-in. He walked in to the Chinese. He wanted to sell himself, and the Chinese were more than happy to deal with him,” Sorenson said.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS