US authorities announced on Tuesday the arrest of a US Army veteran on charges he disclosed secret defense information, including on nuclear weapons, to Israel in a case linked to the huge 1980s Jonathan Pollard spy scandal.
Ben-Ami Kadish, now 84, worked as a mechanical engineer at a US Army weapons center in New Jersey, from where he provided classified documents to Israel’s consul for science affairs in New York from 1979 to 1985, the Justice Department said.
US authorities also accused Kadish of illegally acting as an agent for the Jewish state without notifying the US Attorney General’s office.
A criminal complaint stated Kadish’s Israeli contact was one of the agents whom convicted Pentagon spy Pollard used to pass thousands of secret documents to Israel in 1984 and 1985, in a case that rocked US-Israeli relations.
“In or about November 1985, Jonathan Jay Pollard was charged with espionage-related offenses in relation to his having provided classified information to CC-1, among other people,” the complaint said, referring to the same unnamed Israeli “co-conspirator” who was Kadish’s contact.
A State Department spokesman acknowledged on Tuesday that the Kadish case was “in some ways connected” to that of Pollard, who is serving a life term after being convicted on a charge of spying for Israel while working as a US naval officer.
The Israeli government publicly admitted in 1998 that Pollard had been their agent, and awarded him Israeli citizenship the same year.
Tuesday’s complaint alleges that Israeli consular official CC-1 gave Kadish lists of defense documents to obtain from the US Army’s Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey, where Kadish worked.
Between 1979 and 1985, Kadish took between 50 and 100 classified documents to his home in New Jersey, where CC-1 would photograph them, US prosecutors charged.
One of the documents Kadish provided to CC-1 “contained information concerning nuclear weaponry and was classified as ‘restricted data’” — a specific designation by the US Department of Energy for documents containing atomic-related information — the complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court said.
Other documents provided by Kadish and classified as “secret” by the Pentagon contained information on a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet as well as the Patriot missile air defense system.
Kadish was released on US$300,000 bail and his travel was restricted.
Washington registered its concern over spying on Tuesday with its key Middle East ally.
“We have spoken to the Israelis at the senior level,” said US State Department spokesman Gonzo Gallegos, referring to diplomats at the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Another State Department official’s terse comments over the latest case reflected renewed concern over espionage.
“Twenty-plus years ago during the Pollard case, we noted that this was not the kind of behavior we would expect from friends and allies, and that would remain the case today,” Tom Casey said. “We would expect that Israel would not be engaged in such activities.”
An Israeli defense ministry official reportedly told the Jerusalem Post that the ministry had no knowledge of the incident and learned about it from US media.
Kadish, who worked at the arsenal from 1963 to 1990, kept in touch with CC-1 via telephone and email and met the consular official in Israel in 2004, authorities said.
CC-1 left the US in 1985 and has never returned, they said.
On March 20 this year, CC-1 called Kadish to tell him to lie to US officials who had begun investigating him over the documents, an FBI wire-tap cited by authorities said.
“Don’t say anything. Let them say whatever they want. You didn’t do anything,” CC-1 told Kadish. “What happened 25 years ago? You didn’t remember anything.”
Israeli media identified Israel’s CC-1 consular attache as Yosef Yagur.
US officials said the Israeli diplomat worked during the 1970s for Israel Aircraft Industries, which at the time made weapons for Israel.
Kadish was charged with conspiring to disclose documents related to US national defense to the Israeli government and conspiring to act as an Israeli agent.
He was also charged with conspiring to hinder communication to a law enforcement officer and conspiring to make a materially false statement to an officer.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS