FBI Admits Mistakenly Giving Man Back Secret Files He Took

[Snowden]

washingtonpost.com
FBI Admits Mistakenly Giving Man Back Secret Files He Took


Associated Press
Sunday, March 27, 2005; Page A12

BOSTON, March 26 -- 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 computer disk containing the secret files along with his personal property.

Mehalba had the disk 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 serious mistake," Ricciuti said.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said the disk was not labeled "secret" -- as all classified data should be -- because prosecutors had to keep it in the same condition as when it was seized from Mehalba. Authorities have not said what exactly was stored on the disk, other than it concerns "national defense."

Mehalba, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen who was working as a civilian Arabic translator at Guantanamo, was arrested at Boston's Logan International Airport on Sept. 29, 2003, after customs agents found the disk containing hundreds of documents labeled "SECRET" or "SECRET/NOFORN" among 131 other disks in his luggage.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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[USMC5831]

Why in the hell would they give it back to him and if he had stole them to begin with why would he turn it back over to the FBI.