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| Former Translator at Guantanamo Is Sentenced to 20 Months |
| 2005-02-18 |
| An American translator who admitted taking classified documents from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was sentenced Friday to 20 months in prison. With time already served, Ahmed Fathy Mehalba could be out in three weeks. Mehalba, 32, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen and civilian Arabic translator at Guantanamo, told the judge he exercised "very poor judgment," but said he never intended to use the files for any illicit purpose. He was one of four men swept up in an espionage investigation at the Navy base. Some or all charges were dropped against the three other men - a Muslim chaplain, another interpreter and an Army Reserve colonel. Mehalba was arrested at Boston's Logan Airport in 2003 after returning from Egypt. Customs agents found 132 compact discs in his luggage, including one that contained hundreds of documents labeled "SECRET" or "SECRET/NOFORN," meaning no foreign government was allowed to look at them. Mehalba initially told investigators that the discs contained only music and videos, and later said he had no idea how the classified documents got on the discs. His lawyers argued that he was taking materials with him to work on translating them. Last month, Mehalba pleaded guilty to unauthorized possession of classified materials and lying to federal investigators. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he would have faced around three to four years in prison. But prosecutors agreed to recommend a lower sentence because he accepted responsibility for his actions, has no criminal record and had "significantly reduced mental capacity" at the time he committed the crimes. Defense attorney Joseph Savage said Mehalba has been treated for manic depression and attention deficit disorder. Mehalba received a medical discharged from the Army in May 2001 and was later hired by San Diego-based defense contractor Titan Corp. to be a translator at Guantanamo Bay. He has been behind bars since his arrest 17 months ago. He is expected to be freed around March 10. Sigh |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #7 I wonder if the plan is to deport him to Egypt after he's finished his sentence. I can't imagine they plan to give him his old job back! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-18 10:39:24 PM |
| #6 Assuming he was stupid enough to bring S/NF documents with him on a disk to work, was he so stupid that he couldn't remove the markings on them? If they were .doc, like most working files are, it would have been easy to do. So why leave the markings on them? 1. He's really, really stupid. 2. He needed to have the markings on them to convince his "market" in Egypt that he was good for the stuff. While I never underestimate the lower limits of human intelligence, option 2 makes more sense to me. Any other options? |
| Posted by: longtime lurker 2005-02-18 9:05:16 PM |
| #5 Dang! Thraing sorts out the BS again. Any chance of a real moniker? Not that Thraing is a bad name. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-02-18 5:49:47 PM |
| #4 N.B. - Egyptian born! Ok, here's the deal, spill everything or when we hammer you, we'll strip you of your naturalization and ship your sorry ass home to Egypt where the local authorities will be waiting to entertain you, Egyptian style. They got no bleeding hearts to cry for you there. Sort of - What goes down in Cairo, stays in Cairo. |
| Posted by: Thraing Whaimp1866 2005-02-18 4:47:14 PM |
| #3 he must have cooperated. Or maybe if he didn't, the prosecution decided to be really mean and act like he did, putting him back out on the street for a good laugh. whoizsat? |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-02-18 4:38:48 PM |
| #2 20 months? Is that all? If they're smart (which they don't seem to be), they'll put surveillance on his ass when he gets out. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-02-18 4:34:12 PM |
| #1 ...and had "significantly reduced mental capacity" at the time he committed the crimes. The old 'I'm crazyy!!' defence still works, unfortunately. |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-02-18 4:30:12 PM |