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BOSTON (AP) - The FBI admitted Saturday it accidentally gave classified documents back to the American translator who pleaded guilty to taking them from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who was released from jail earlier this month, contacted the FBI's Boston office Tuesday after he realized agents had inadvertently given him the compact disc containing the secret files along with his personal property. Mehalba had the disc in his possession for only a "matter of hours" before the FBI retrieved it, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ricciuti. "Someone in the bureau obviously made a...

BOSTON (AP) -- The FBI admitted Saturday it accidentally gave classified documents back to the American translator who pleaded guilty to taking them from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who was released from jail earlier this month, contacted the FBI's Boston office Tuesday after he realized agents had inadvertently given him the compact disc containing the secret files along with his personal property. Mehalba had the disc in his possession for only a "matter of hours" before the FBI retrieved it, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ricciuti. "Someone in the bureau obviously made a...

An Arabic translator who took classified documents from the US military base at Guantanamo Bay yesterday received a 20-month sentence in US District Court in Boston and said he was trying to do a good job by working on the material at home. Ahmed Mehalba, 32, a linguist, admitted he removed a computer disk containing 368 secret documents from the military base, but his lawyers urged leniency, because he was off his medication for bipolar disorder at the time. In the summer of 2003, Mehalba took the disk with him to his native Egypt during an emergency leave from the...

BOSTON (AP) — A former Guantanamo Bay translator arrested after he was found with classified documents at Logan International Airport was charged Wednesday with gathering defense information and making false statements. The grand jury's indictment alleges that Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who has been in federal custody since his arrest, lied to investigators when he told them he was not carrying any government documents from Guantanamo Bay. Customs agents found 132 compact discs in his luggage, including one that contained hundreds of classified documents labeled "SECRET." He also allegedly lied about not understanding the meaning of the term "secret" with regards...

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...

<p>Military officials this week began an internal review of security measures at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp, saying immediate recommendations could be made to reinforce or correct procedures.</p> <p>A spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo, said the review was prompted by the arrests of two translators and a Muslim chaplain on suspicions of espionage at the prison camp.</p>

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