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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force translator who worked at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects will face a court-martial on charges of spying and aiding the enemy but will not be sentenced to death if convicted, the Air Force said on Friday. Reuters Photo   The general who ordered the espionage trial for senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi of Detroit, Michigan, "did not refer the case as a capital case," the Air force said in a statement. Capital cases may carry the death penalty. Al Halabi, 23, is being held at Vandenberg Air...

<p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) &#8212; An interpreter at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, who was arrested last month carrying classified documents, had government clearance to access the information, his attorney said in court yesterday.</p> <p>But federal prosecutors, while acknowledging Ahmed Fathy Mehalba was cleared to see classified documents, said he was forbidden to transport any information.</p>

WORCESTER, Mass. -- Federal authorities said in court today that an Arabic linguist with top security clearance at the terrorist detention camp on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had gone to Egypt with reams of classified and secret documents. The linguist, Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, was stopped Sept. 29 at Logan Airport in Boston while on his way home from Egypt. He was found to be carrying 132 computer discs in his luggage. Now, a review of just one of those discs has turned up 725 documents labeled as "secret," "sensitive," or "classified" material from the highly secure Guantanamo Bay prison camp, officials...

Wed October 15, 2003 01:07 PM ET By Greg Frost WORCESTER, Mass. (Reuters) - A civilian translator at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects had hundreds of documents labeled "secret" in his possession when he was arrested last month, an FBI agent said on Wednesday. Prosecutors accused Ahmed Fathy Mehalba last month of lying to federal officials about classified information he was carrying when he arrived in the United States from Egypt, where he had been visiting relatives. The arrest of Mehalba, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, brought to three the number of...

WASHINGTON (AP)--An Air Force officer has made a secret recommendation of what charges should be pursued against a translator accused of espionage at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorist suspects, the translator's lawyer said Tuesday. The report from Col. Anne Burman suggests to Air Force officials which of the 32 charges against Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi should go to trial. Air Force generals will decide whether al-Halabi will face a court-martial on the espionage and other charges--and whether military prosecutors can seek the death penalty if al-Halabi is convicted of the most serious counts. Burman's entire report is...

<p>The Muslim organizations that certify chaplains for the U.S. military have come under renewed scrutiny since the arrest of Army Chaplain Yousef Yee and two Muslim translators who worked with al Qaeda prisoners in Guantanamo Bay — and that's all to the good. The Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences (GSISS) and the American Muslim Foundation (AMF) were already being investigated, and it may well be that somehow Mr. Yee picked up his radical Islam from some contact with these groups. But so far another possibility has been overlooked, perhaps because its political incorrectness quotient is positively off the scale: The possibility that Yee was sincere when he denounced the September 11 attacks, and that his mind was changed by the Guantanamo prisoners themselves.</p>

ASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — American interpreters at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who are under suspicion of espionage may have sabotaged interviews with detainees by inaccurately translating interrogators' questions and prisoners' answers, senior American officials said on Monday.It is unclear in how many cases, if any, this may have happened, the officials said. But military investigators are taking the issue seriously enough to review taped interrogations involving the Arabic-language interpreters under scrutiny to spot-check their accuracy.If the investigators' worst fears are realized, officials said, scores of interviews with suspected Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at the Cuban detention center...

Scientists claim to invent instant translator Scientists claim to have invented an instant translator which will allow people talking on phones in different languages to understand each other. A research team from Rousse in Bulgaria claim to have patented the technology which converts words spoken in one language into digital code which can then be immediately interpreted into another language. The translator chip can be inserted into any phone, the scientists claim. Project leader Koycho Mitev told BTV national television: "A person can talk freely on the phone in their mother tongue and at the other end of the world...

Guantanamo interviews to be revised in spy scare By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 06/10/2003) A line-by-line review has been ordered of every interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp involving an air force interpreter suspected of espionage and treason. Intelligence officers face the nightmare prospect that Ahmad al-Halabi, a Syrian-born linguist who served at the camp in Cuba for eight months, may have edited or deliberately distorted information given by al-Qa'eda and Taliban suspects during interrogation sessions. Tapes of those interrogations - some lasting hours - are being freshly translated. "If the subject answered 'five' and [Halabi] told interrogators...

<p>October 3, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating whether a translator at the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave extremist groups the names of al Qaeda operatives who are being exposed by detainees during their interrogations, it was revealed yesterday. Law-enforcement officials confirmed that authorities found the names of dozens of al Qaeda operatives, whose names surfaced in interrogations with the Guantanamo Bay detainees, on a computer disk carried by camp translator Ahmed Mehalba when he was arrested earlier this week.</p>

Ahmed Mehalba was taken into custody at Logan's International Airport late on Monday

Just broke on CNN......this is a civilian translator!

<p>The case of the Guantanamo Bay Arabic-language translator arrested for espionage yesterday illustrates the inevitable consequence of the critical shortage of reliable, American-born interpreters reported extensively by WorldNetDaily over the past year.</p> <p>Syrian-born Air Force airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, who served at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba holding suspected al-Qaida terrorists, has been accused of trying to give Syria information about the detainees.</p> <p>He could face execution on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy.</p>

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria denied Wednesday it had any links to a U.S. Air Force translator of Syrian descent who has been charged with espionage during an assignment at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, 24, has been detained for allegedly sending e-mail with information about the prisoners at Guantanamo "to unauthorized person or persons whom he, the accused, knew to be the enemy," according to the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force indictment does not say who "the enemy" is. Al-Halabi is also accused of planning to give classified information about the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An air force translator at the U.S. prison camp for suspected terrorists has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, counts that could carry the death penalty, a military spokesman said Tuesday. Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi is being held at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, facing 32 criminal charges, spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said. Al-Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at the prison camp for al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Shavers said. The air force enlisted man knew the Muslim chaplain at the prison who was arrested earlier this month,...

Two more U.S. service members working at the prison on the grounds of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (search) are in custody, under suspicion of espionage and possible improper communications with the camp's detainees, senior military officials told Fox News Tuesday afternoon. One of the accused is in the Navy, the other is in the Air Force, officials said. Their roles at the camp have not been disclosed yet, nor their ranks and religion. Fox News has learned they both were detained roughly two weeks before Islamic military chaplain James Yee (search) was arrested. Officials declined to tell Fox News...

<p>WASHINGTON — An Air Force airman who worked at the U.S. prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (search) has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, a military spokesman said Tuesday.</p> <p>Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at the prison camp for Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects, spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said. The Air Force enlisted man knew the Muslim chaplain at the prison arrested earlier this month, but it's unclear if the two arrests are linked, Shavers said.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Air Force airman who worked as a translator at the U.S. prison camp for suspected terrorists has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, a military spokesman said Tuesday. Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi is being held at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said. Al-Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at the prison camp for al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Shavers said. The Air Force enlisted man knew the Muslim chaplain at the prison arrested earlier this month, but it's unclear if the two arrests are...

Iraq Guerrillas Target 'Traitors' Working for U.S. Thu August 21, 2003 05:01 AM ET By Andrew Cawthorne TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas followed an Iraqi translator home and put a bullet through his head because he worked for U.S. occupiers, the American army said on Thursday. The killers left a note by the corpse threatening to attack more Iraqi "collaborators" after Tuesday's killing near the town of Samarra, north of the capital Baghdad. "This was cold-blooded execution. They view all these Iraqis working with us as traitors," said Major Bryan Luke of the U.S. army's 4th Infantry Division. Iraqi guerrillas...

This is the story of hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign language documents that the FBI neglected to translate before and after the Sept.11 attacks because of problems in its language department - documents that detailed what the FBI heard on wiretaps and learned during interrogations of suspected terrorists. Sibel Edmonds, a translator who worked at the FBI's language division, says the documents weren't translated because the divison was riddled with incompetence and corruption. Edmonds was fired last year after reporting her concerns to FBI officials. She told her story behind closed doors to investigators in Congress and to the...