Ex-Sailor Convicted in Terror Case

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A former Navy sailor was convicted Wednesday of leaking details about ship movements to suspected terrorism supporters, an act that could have endangered his own crewmates.

Jurors convicted Hassan Abu-Jihaad, 32, of Phoenix of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing classified national defense information on the second day of deliberations.

The American-born Muslim convert formerly known as Paul R. Hall faces up to 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced May 23. His attorneys said they were disappointed, and that an appeal was likely.

The leak came amid increased wariness on the part of U.S. Navy commanders whose ships headed to the Persian Gulf in the months after a terrorist ambush in 2000 killed 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole.

Abu-Jihaad, who was a signalman aboard the USS Benfold, was accused of passing along details that included the makeup of his Navy battle group, its planned movements and a drawing of the group's formation when it was to pass through the dangerous Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf on April 29, 2001.

Abu-Jihaad's attorney said a four-year investigation that spanned two continents failed to turn up proof that Abu-Jihaad leaked details of ship movements and their vulnerability to attack.

Federal prosecutors said he sympathized with the enemy and admitted disclosing military intelligence. But they acknowledged they did not have direct proof that he leaked the ship details.

Authorities said the details of ship movements had to have been leaked by an insider, saying they were not publicly known and contained military jargon. The leaked documents closely matched what Abu-Jihaad would have had access to as a signalman, authorities said.

Dan LaBelle, Abu-Jihaad's attorney, tried to show that many details of ship movements he was accused of leaking to suspected terrorism supporters were publicly available through news reports, press releases and Web sites. He also noted that Navy officials testified that the details were full of errors.

Prosecutors say investigators discovered files on a computer disk recovered from a suspected terrorism supporter's home in London that included the ship movements, as well as the number and type of personnel on each ship and the ships' capabilities. The file ended with instructions to destroy the message, according to testimony.

Abu-Jihaad was charged in the same case that led to the 2004 arrest of Babar Ahmad, a British computer specialist accused of running Web sites to raise money, appeal for fighters and provide equipment such as gas masks and night vision goggles for terrorists. Ahmad, who lived with his parents where the computer file was allegedly found, is to be extradited to the U.S.

Abu-Jihaad, who was honorably discharged in 2002, was prosecuted in New Haven because the investigation first focused on a Connecticut-based Internet service provider.

Cuba said to broaden its spying against U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Cuba has extended its intelligence-gathering capabilities beyond the United States and Latin America to places where vital U.S. interests are at stake -- like Iran, Turkey, India and Pakistan -- a former top U.S. counterintelligence official told lawmakers Thursday.

Chris Simmons, a former counterintelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said a series of intelligence setbacks for Cuba between 1995 and 2003 -- such as the dismantling of a network of spies in Miami, the closure of an intellingece center in Canada and the arrest of former DIA Cuba analyst Ana Montes in 2001 -- forced Cuba to tighten its intelligence operations.

Today Cuba puts trusted top intelligence operatives in charge of key embassy postings and operates more with allies like Iran and Venezuela, Simmons said in a briefing organized by Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Cuba's intelligence apparatus, considered one of the world's most formidable, numbers more than 11,500 agents, he said, of whom about 3,500 are focused on international operations.

Cuba has resorted to employing more of what he called ''ambassador-spies'' -- top intelligence chiefs who have become diplomatic envoys.

Before, Cuba placed such persons in the United States and with a few of Cuba's closest allies, like the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

NEW APPROACH

''We've seen a change in how they use ambassador-spies,'' Simmons said, to ensure that their intelligence centers ``never again get closed.''

Such top intelligence officers are also being dispatched to places where the United States has active military operations, he said.

''They feel compelled to work against every major U.S. military operation for their own interest and because it is vital to their allies,'' he told the lawmakers. He said the information is then shared with U.S. rivals like Russia.

He said Cuba has established four new ''regional intelligence centers'' -- in Iran, India, Pakistan and Turkey.

Simmons, who worked on Cuba for the DIA for a dozen years, has founded the Cuban Intelligence Research Center, based in Leesburg, Va.

Ties with Iran's current authorities have always been close, but the cooperation has become tighter, especially after 2006. The two countries work together on jamming TV and radio broadcasts and on dual-use biotechnology.

Cuba has dispatched a career intelligence officer, Juan Carretero Ibáñez, to India. He was an important intelligence operative in Chile during the 1970s regime of President Salvador Allende and headed a Cuban propaganda outfit, the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

IN PAKISTAN AGAIN

Cuba closed its Pakistan embassy in 1990 but reopened it in April 2006 and appointed ''ambassador-spy'' Gustavo Machín Gómez. Machín was one of the 14 diplomats expelled from the United States in 2003 on accusations of spying.

Cuba's ambassador to Turkey is Ernesto Gómez Abascal, who Simmons said was either an intelligence officer or a collaborator and is a former ambassador to Iraq when it was led by Saddam Hussein. Simmons said Cuba shared information on U.S. military activities with the Hussein government.