Posted on 03/31/2004 2:35:56 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago newspaper publisher convicted of spying on Iraqi dissidents for Saddam Hussein was sentenced Wednesday to three years and 10 months in federal prison.
Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, 61, is expected to be deported after he finishes his prison term.
U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon also said he may not re-enter the United States without permission from the attorney general.
"He helped to sustain a hostile foreign government," federal prosecutor Daniel Gillogly said in urging a tough sentence.
Defense attorney William H. Theis argued that his client was not very important in the world of Iraqi intelligence.
Dumeisi was convicted of failing to register as a foreign agent, conspiring to fail to register, lying to a federal grand jury and lying to an immigration agent. He was not convicted of espionage, which involves theft of defense secrets, nor was there any allegation the case involved terrorism.
Witnesses said that Dumeisi spied on Iraqi dissidents living in the United States who were opposed to Saddam's regime and that he forwarded his information to Iraqi intelligence agents who worked at that country's U.N. mission under the guise of diplomats.
His tiny suburban newspaper, Al Mahjar, was full of articles critical of U.S. Mideast policy and praising the Iraqi dictator.
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