Noshir Gowadia, one of the lead engineers on the US B2 stealth bomber project, has been charged with additional counts of spying in an indictment returned by a grand jury last week.
ABC News reported that Mr. Gowadia, who had already been indicted in November 2005 for selling secrets about the B2 to China, was also accused of trying to sell more US classified military information to individuals in Israel, Germany, and Switzerland.
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In recent years the FBI and Justice Department believe [Gowadia] went on a marketing campaign, via e-mail, essentially selling information about sensors and the stealth propulsion system to several countries, including China.
"The defendant in this case attempted to profit from his know-how and his knowledge of sensitive military technology," said Ken Wainstein, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division.
Haaretz reports that the allegations of secrets sold to Israel are "secondary" to charges concerning China.
The identities of the Israeli sources have also not been disclosed, nor whether they were private businesspeople or firms. The indictment does not refer to the Israeli government as being involved in the matter.
The Associated Press reports that Gowadia, a naturalized US citizen originally from India, was allegedly paid $110,000 for the information that he passed to China.
An 18-count indictment issued Wednesday alleges that Gowadia designed and helped test for China a hard-to-detect cruise missile nozzle and that he analyzed for his Chinese clients how the modified cruise missile would lock on to U.S. air-to-air missiles.
The indictment also alleges that Gowadia conspired with a Chinese agent to conceal his trips to the communist country to discuss the project. The indictment says the two arranged for Chinese border control authorities not to stamp Gowadia's passport and entry papers when he traveled there.
Air Force Times reports that prosecutors could seek the death penalty for Gowadia, but have not yet decided if they will do so.
Gowadia, who resided in Hawaii before his arrest, pleaded not guilty to the new charges. His trial is set to begin in July 2007. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports that Gowadia's son called the charges "ridiculous" and said his father is the subject of a sham prosecution by the US government.
Ashton Gowadia described his father as a hero who has risked his life for 40 years doing work behind the scenes for the United States, had to travel with armed guards and had to carry suicide pills to swallow if he were ever captured. "To go out doing something stupid for $100,000 is ridiculous," he said.
The Gowadia indictment is not the only Chinese espionage case that the US has faced recently. This summer, Ronald N. Montaperto, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst had pleaded guilty to "illegally holding classified documents and admitted in a plea agreement to passing 'top secret' information to Chinese intelligence officials," reported The Washington Times
Mr. Montaperto was sentenced to three months house arrest and five years probation. The National Ledger, an independent news website, reported that the judge in the case said that although the charges were serious, he had been "influenced by letters of support from military and intelligence officials who wrote letters on Montaperto's behalf."
Because of the ongoing intelligence tensions between the US and China, both nations are taking "extreme precautions" in building new embassies in each other's capitals, reports Agence France-Presse.
In an apparent bid to avoid any security problems, US State Department spokesman Kendal Smith said the United States and China concluded an agreement giving them the right to use their own workers in constructing the embassies. There are about 500 US workers in Beijing soley responsible for constructing key portions of the embassy, he said.
Around the same number of Chinese workers are in Washington to build their embassy, other sources said.
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