21.1.2006. 10:57:06
A US court has sentenced a former Defence Department specialist to 12 years and seven months in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two pro-Israeli lobbyists.
But Lawrence Franklin, who had worked as a top analyst, has been cooperating with government investigators and was given bail while his lawyers negotiate a reduction in the sentence.
US District Judge T.S. Ellis described it as "a very odd" case as he believed Franklin, who pleaded guilty to three charges last year, had been acting out of a desire to help the United States.
Franklin was accused of giving secret information about a Middle East nation to an Israeli diplomat and two lobbyists for the influential American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Media reports said the information concerned Iran.
He was also accused of illegally keeping confidential documents at his home in Kearneysville, West Virginia.
At his first hearing in October, Lawrence Franklin said he had been acting out of "frustration" with US policy in the Middle East.
He said he hoped the two lobbyists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, could influence this policy through their contacts at the US National Security Council.
Judge Ellis chided Franklin for the reasons he has given for his actions. Franklin said he passed on the secret information because he was concerned about a threat to the United States that he felt was not being taken seriously enough by the administration.
He decided to pass the information on to others who would feed it back to the White House's National Security Council.
"There is no excuse for your thinking that you could get to the NSC circuitously by disclosing national defence information to unauthorised persons," Judge Ellis said before issuing the sentence. "It can't be disclosed."
SOURCE: World
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