Accused spy had one-way ticket to Jordan

The Times (N.W. Indiana) ^ | 1-10-2004 | MIKE ROBINSON

[Prince Charles]

Accused spy had one-way ticket to Jordan

WAR ON TERROR - Man accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents arrested one day before departure

By MIKE ROBINSON
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO -- An Arabic-language community newspaper publisher accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents in this country for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service apparently was planning to leave the country when he was arrested, an FBI agent testified Friday.

Khaled Dumeisi, 61, was arrested on July 9, one day before the scheduled departure date on a one-way ticket to Jordan discovered in his home, agent Edward Lawson testified.

The testimony came just before the prosecution and defense rested in Dumeisi's trial before U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon. The trial began Monday.

Prosecutors say Dumeisi helped Iraqi intelligence by spying on exiles in this country because he believed Saddam Hussein was the only friend of the Palestinian cause in the Mideast.

He is charged with serving as an Iraqi agent without registering, conspiring to do so, lying to a federal grand jury and lying to an immigration agent. He is not charged with espionage, which involves the theft of classified U.S. defense secrets.

The charges carry a maximum sentence under law of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Federal guidelines yet to be calculated will govern the sentence if Dumeisi is convicted.

Jurors are to hear closing arguments Monday.

Defense attorneys say Dumeisi, who was well aware the government was investigating his ties to the Iraqi government, had told agents last May that he was planning a visit to Jordan.

But agents say he never told them about a one-way ticket in July.

Defense attorney William Theis maintains that Dumeisi was merely a journalist who contacted the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in hope of getting material to write about.

He has suggested that Dumeisi might have been the unwitting dupe of Iraqi undercover agents at the U.N. mission, which prosecutors say was a hotbed of spies.

Among other things, Dumeisi is accused of getting a female friend who worked for a long distance company to get the phone records of an exile military man who opposed the regime.

A list of his phone calls was found in a cache of intelligence documents turned over to a U.S. counterintelligence officer after the fall of Baghdad.

Dumeisi later told a federal grand jury that the woman had obtained the records because she had engaged in a flirtation with the exiled military man and wanted to check him out.

Dumeisi told the grand jury that the list of phone numbers must have been stolen from his office.

[The Electrician]

Dumeisi later told a federal grand jury that the woman had obtained the records because she had engaged in a flirtation with the exiled military man and wanted to check him out.

Dumeisi told the grand jury that the list of phone numbers must have been stolen from his office.

Yep, sounds like lying to a Federal grand jury to me... But what's the big deal about that? According to the Clinton doctrine, that's not a crime. After all, he was just lying about sex.