SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 14: Court-martial proceedings against an Arabic translator, Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi, accused of spying at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison camp, began on Tuesday at the Travis air force base in California.
Al Halabi, a naturalized American born in Syria, is accused of trying to deliver more than 180 written and e-mail messages from detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Syria.
The government said he stored the messages on his laptop and planned to carry them overseas. He's also accused of trying to deliver secret documents about prison camp operations and names and other personal information about detainees to Syria with "reason to believe it would be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of Syria," according to charging documents.
Al Halabi, 24, was arraigned on 17 counts of espionage, lying and disobeying orders. He's also accused of failing to report his contacts with the Syrian Embassy to his superiors and of repeatedly lying to Air Force investigators.
If convicted of the most serious attempted espionage counts, he could face life in prison without parole, his lawyer, Major James Key, said outside court after the hearing.
Col. Barbara Brand, the military judge in the case, scheduled the next hearing for March 24. She also set a Feb. 25 deadline for the government to turn over classified documents to Al Halabi's lead attorney, Donald G. Rehkopf.
Al Halabi was arrested in July after spending nine months working at the prison camp in Cuba that holds some 660 suspected Al Qaeda or Taliban members.
