Mich. Men Accused of Spying for Iraq [pre-2003 war]

AP via Forbes ^ | April 17, 2007 | David Aguilar

[jdm]

Two Michigan men spied for the Iraqi government before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country, federal authorities said Tuesday.

A grand jury indictment accuses Najib Shemami, 58, of Sterling Heights, of four espionage-related charges between March 2002 and early 2003, according to a statement by the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI.

A criminal complaint filed against Ghazi Al-Awadi, 78, of Dearborn, claims he told the Iraqi intelligence in 1997 that he killed his son-in-law because the man belonged to an anti-Saddam Hussein political party.

Both men were arrested Tuesday.

Shemami and Al-Awadi are charged with conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without notification of the U.S. attorney general and acting as an agent for a foreign government. Shemami also is charged with violating the U.S. International Economic Powers Act and making false statements to the FBI.

The charges were based on Iraqi intelligence documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and authenticated by former members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the Detroit Free Press reported on its Web site Tuesday.

The statement by the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI says Shemami acted as a spy under the government of the late Saddam Hussein, conspiring "with others to act as an agent of the government of Iraq."

The indictment claims that Shemami shared information about Iraqi expatriates in the United States, potential Iraqi political candidates and U.S. and Turkish military activities in Turkey, the release said.

Federal prosecutors say Shemami traveled between Michigan and Iraq multiple times, meeting with Iraqi intelligence agents prior to the March 2003 invasion.

The captured documents said Al-Awadi met with Iraqi officials in 1997 and offered his cooperation, according to the criminal complaint against him. The documents claimed he provided information about a retired Iraqi physician who was planning to flee to the United States and his nephew, a major general in Iraq.

The criminal complaint also says Al-Awadi offered information about refugees arriving in Dearborn and a personal pledge that he was "ready to do whatever is needed from him to serve Iraq and the wise leadership."

When the FBI interviewed him in 2006, Al-Awadi denied working as an Iraqi agent, court documents said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Scheer freed both men on $10,000 bonds following brief appearances Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. He ordered both men to surrender their passports.

Al-Awadi is scheduled for a May 7 hearing. No court date has been set for Shemami, said Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Detroit.

Shemami's lawyer Juan Mateo told the Detroit Free Press for a story on its Web site: "I've known the family for many years now. They are a hardworking Chaldean family that, in my opinion, would never do anything to hurt the United States."

Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday night for Mateo and Al-Awadi's lawyer, federal defender Richard Helfrick.

Both men are U.S. citizens. Shemami is married, has nine children and has lived in the United States for about 40 years, Mateo told the Free Press. Al-Awadi, who has seven children, has been in the United States since 1974, court records said.

In 1996, Al-Awadi was paroled from the Michigan Department of Corrections after serving six years for manslaughter in the stabbing of his son-in-law, Emad Muttar, in Dearborn.

The Detroit area contains one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East, including an Iraqi community of Chaldeans, who are Catholic, Arabs and Kurds. Many from Iraq fled their homeland during the rule of Saddam.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

They are not Michigan men. They are Arabs.

[Westlander]

Dearborn.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

These men like countless others living in America consider themselves Arabs/muslims first, before anything else.