Indiana trucker faces charges for espionage

Allegations of international espionage will duel with claims of a mysterious twin when court proceedings begin for a man accused of offering to sell the names of U.S. intelligence agents to Saddam Hussein's regime.\nShaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 53, will represent himself when jury selection begins Monday in U.S. District Court.\nProsecutors say Shaaban tried to broker the sale of information to Iraqi officials in late 2002, shortly before a U.S.-led coalition began the war to overthrow Hussein's dictatorship.\nBut the truck driver from Greenfield, Ind., about 20 miles east of Indianapolis, contends he is a victim of mistaken identity and is being confused for a dead twin brother who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.\n"My case is a political case, all charges are false," he wrote in late November to Laura Briggs, court clerk for the U.S. District of Southern Indiana. "I can't defend myself by myself, but I will be forced to take this step at the end because I will not go to trial with an attorney who will topple me."\nU.S. District Judge John D. Tinder in December approved Shaaban's request to represent himself at trial. William Dazey, who had been Shaaban's public defender, has turned down repeated requests from The Associated Press to discuss the case during the past 10 months.\nProsecutors declined to discuss the case as they prepared for trial, but court filings show they plan to call at least two witnesses who will be disguised and identified only by pseudonyms.\n"The prosecution of the case involves international witnesses, Arabic and Russian language translation issues, review of classified information and charges of acting as the agent of a foreign government, which is a crime that has never been prosecuted in this district," assistant district attorneys Sharon Jackson and Timothy Morrison wrote in a Dec. 30, 2005 filing.\nOne witness expected to testify is a former agent in the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service. Court records contend he met with Shaaban at the Al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad in November 2002 to negotiate terms of the sale of U.S. intelligence information.\nAn undercover FBI agent who prosecutors say met Shaaban in 2003 is also expected to testify.\nTheir testimony could shed light on Shaaban's background, which court records indicate is a maze of contradictions spanning a half-dozen countries.\nHe first told Homeland Security officials they were looking for his cousin but later said his dead twin was at fault. He has said the woman the government identifies as his wife is his sister-in-law and that the man identified as his son is his nephew.\nShaaban told Homeland Security officials he is the child of a Lebanese mother and an Azerbaijani father. He told officials he was born in Jordan but spent considerable time in Russia, where he received a doctorate in mining from a Moscow university.\nAn FBI-led investigation into Shaaban lasted more than a year and resulted in his arrest in March. A federal grand jury indicted him that month on charges of illegally procuring naturalization and a driver's license, acting as a foreign agent, violating sanctions against Iraq and conspiracy.\nA charge of witness tampering was added in November after prosecutors said Shaaban wrote a letter threatening to kill his brother if he were to testify in the case.\nProsecutors have said Shaaban was trained as a spy in the former Soviet Union and, after emigrating to the U.S., legally changed his name in 1997 to Joe Brown.\nDespite the name change, court documents say he used the alias Shaaban Hafed on a naturalization application in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen illegally. They allege he also illegally obtained an Indiana commercial driver's license in 1999 using the Hafed alias.\nThe indictment includes more than a dozen names for Shaaban.\nThe government says Shaaban traveled to Baghdad in late 2002 and agreed to sell the names of U.S. agents and operatives to Iraq for $3 million. He also offered to organize so-called "human shields" who would protect Iraqi infrastructure when the U.S. attacked, court records say.\nFrom the start, government officials have said Shaaban's case is about preserving national security in a post-Sept. 11 world.\n"The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were created because individuals like Shaaban were able to exploit gaps in the nation's immigration system," Michelle Mangold, the acting customs agent in charge for Indianapolis, said when Shaaban was indicted.\nShaaban contends he was a covert U.S. agent hoping to pass along information he thought would save the lives of American troops.\n"I am not a terrorist," he told Homeland Security officials. "... Myself, I will be against anybody who do anything against America."\nIf found guilty of all charges, Shaaban could face up to 65 years in prison and more than $1.5 million in fines.