Nookin futz!
Muslim translator who took classified Iraq maps is sentenced to 11 years (NY Sun)
A Brooklyn man who stole classified documents while serving as a translator in Iraq was sentenced yesterday to 11 years in prison after a federal judge showed leniency, saying he could not tell with certainty whether the translator was spying for the insurgency or was only a troubled man who gathered the material for no apparent reason.
The documents in Noureddine Malki’s possession included battle maps showing routes used by American troops and lists of locations that troops suspected were used to hide weapons of mass destruction.Authorities found the documents in Malki’s Hoyt Street apartment in 2005, upon his return from a third tour in Iraq.
Taking the witness stand in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn for the first time since his jailing nearly three years ago, Malki, now 48, testified that he believed the government was going “hard” on him because of his “cultural background” — he is Muslim and from Morocco
[...]
An assistant United States attorney, John Buretta, suggested that Malki could have passed along the classified information to the insurgency. Mr. Buretta pointed out that Malki’s phone records and e-mails show that even after returning home to Brooklyn, he stayed in contact with Iraqis, some of whom had ties to the insurgency. The prosecutor also said Malki had been accused of sneaking off one of the bases he lived on while in Iraq and that a superior had shown concern over the amount of time Malki spent with an Iraqi source who had known contacts in the insurgency.
Mr. Buretta also tried to show that various files found on Malki’s computer — including pictures of corpses of Muslims as well as a music video extolling martyrdom and the capture of Jerusalem — demonstrated that Malki had a motive to harm this country. Malki countered by saying he was a collector of things, and he compared his Internet downloads to his collections of “stamps, currencies, and cartoons.”
If this story doesn't make you mad as hell, well then I don't know what. This judge has the blood of Americna soldiers on his hands. Here is the putz en tuchas that handed down his lenient sentence:
“There is a certain amount of bizarreness about this case,” Judge Korman said, adding that he was “not 100% sure if we are dealing with a spy or someone who has other problems.
One point that seemed to trouble Judge Korman was why Malki, if he had taken the documents truly by accident, had not destroyed them upon realizing they were in his possession.
Malki, answering the judge’s question on that point, said he had “kept them in my apartment for the sole reason that I would establish contact” with an intelligence officer to whom he could return them.
That did not happen.
ththththththththththtats all folks!
